The anti-Trump media have already congratulated themselves for destroying the Matt Gaetz nomination for attorney general and are now attempting to destroy the Pete Hegseth nomination for secretary of defense.

Vetting the records of cabinet nominees is a legitimate journalistic function. It is not a legitimate journalistic function to kill a nomination based on hit pieces stuffed with anonymous sources. Someone with responsibility at media outlets should ensure that their hit pieces include some sources who are named. Networks who eagerly spread anonymously sourced hit pieces are also illegitimate. This is activism, not journalism.

Three NBC reporters issued a story that began: “Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, drank in ways that concerned his colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees who spoke with NBC News.” None of them was named: “three current and seven former Fox employees, all of whom asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation.”

So, you can destroy someone’s nomination anonymously, with no “retaliation”? Couldn’t it be argued that these nasty quotes alleging out-of-control drinking could constitute “retaliation”?

NBC granted this permission because they all share the same negative goal: purge Pete. They refuse to interview his Fox News co-hosts who went on the record in Hegseth’s defense and say NBC never reached out to them. That’s because fairness and balance are equated with “normalizing” Trump.

Fox News personality and comedian Jimmy Failla summarized the partisan media games with this tweet: “NBC runs with anonymous sources who say Pete Hegseth hits the bottle but ignores everyone ON RECORD who says Doug Emhoff hits his girlfriend.”

Back in October, when the networks ignored the allegations of Emhoff’s violence at the Cannes Film Festival, they ran with an anonymously sourced hit piece in The Atlantic where Donald Trump allegedly claimed that a dead Mexican American veteran’s funeral was too expensive (that he had offered to fund). Four years earlier, Goldberg & Co. used anonymous sources saying Trump called American war dead “suckers” and “losers.” They’re still peddling that toxic stuff.

This, in political terms, is a kangaroo court, where the accused is not allowed to know his accusers – “for fear of retaliation.” It’s manifestly unfair to ruin presidential campaigns or government confirmations with anonymous sources and a lot of braying about “growing outrage tonight.” Who is “growing the outrage”? The media with an ax in its hand.

Taxpayer-funded NPR promoted New Yorker writer Jane Mayer and her latest anti-Hegseth hit piece on the ridiculously named “All Things Considered,” since that program – well, all NPR programs – failed to consider the allegations against Doug Emhoff in October. Mayer also promoted NBC’s hit piece. She also underlined, “Pete Hegseth has been accused of raping a woman in 2017.” No charges were ever brought, but they’ll throw any noodles at the wall when there’s a Republican “confirmation process.”

You can also see the games at play when NBC reporters proclaim their network has not “independently confirmed” nasty allegations against Republicans but recounts them on television anyway. But they’ll sit on negative allegations against Democrats like Doug Emhoff because they haven’t confirmed them independently – if, in fact, they are making any attempt to independently confirm these things.

“News” outlets that load up negative stories with anonymous sources cannot lecture us on transparency, and if they ruin a newly elected president’s nominees before any confirmation hearings, they also should not lecture us on democracy. The phrase “deep state” can often apply to political actors running the country through anonymous mudslinging in the press.

Taylor Lorenz, an ex-Washington Post writer, posted online a comment after United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed this week: “And people wonder why we want these people dead.”

Her comment, on the alternative social media page Bluesky, was atop a comment about a Blue Cross Blue Shield division beginning limits on payments for anesthesia in some cases.

Lorenz then posted an image of Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO Kim Keck.

https://t.co/RphaBEugSe pic.twitter.com/tVKzL2hwWC

— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) December 4, 2024

A report at Zerohedge explained, “‘People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering,’ Lorenz said in another post. ‘As someone against death and suffering, I think it’s good to call out this broken system and the ppl in power who enable it.'”

The report noted bullet casings found at the scene were inscribed with the words, “Delay, “Deny,” “Depose.”

The hunt for the shooter, who fled the scene on a bicycle, continues.

The report said the labeling could be linked to a book from more than a decade ago that criticized the insurance industry. It was called, “Delay, Deny, Defend.”

The report noted other “left-leaning” commenters shared equally strong opinions, including Ken Klipperstein and Kylie Cheung.

the way we’re socialized to see violence only as interpersonal—not see state violence (policies that create poverty/kill), structural violence, institutional violence—is very deliberate. same w/ panics about ~shoplifting~ vs how much corporations steal from every single one of us https://t.co/ZS3dH23Upp

— Kylie Cheung (@kylietcheung) December 4, 2024

Editor’s Note: Be aware of offensive language:

No sh*t murder is bad. The jokes about the United CEO aren’t really about him; they’re about the rapacious healthcare system he personified and which Americans feel deep pain and humiliation about

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) December 4, 2024

A report the Gateway Pundit noted Thompson reportedly was under investigation on allegations of insider trading.

“What type of person writes something like this as a first reaction to a public assassination?” the article wondered. “Lorenz, the ‘Queen of Doxxing,’ left the globalist rag The Washington Post in October after letting her true feelings about Joe Biden slip in a revealing tweet.”

Thompson was shot outside a hotel in New York, where he had gone for a business meeting. A $10,000 reward is being offered for information on the homicide.

$10,000 reward offered for information on the United Healthcare CEO’s homicide pic.twitter.com/RpqFHjWFNy

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) December 5, 2024

Alan Dershowitz: ‘I have a theory about why this CEO was killed’

‘There was an investigation about insider trading. And if he was being investigated, there were people out there who would be afraid he would flip and turn against THEM.’ #Unitedhealthcareceo @AlanDersh pic.twitter.com/UZSdDecTNV

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) December 5, 2024

A liberal media pundit, called an “extremist” in some reports this week, was responding to comments, some critical and some sarcastic, about Joe Biden’s flip-flop regarding son Hunter, and his announcement of a presidential pardon for the tax- and gun-charge convicted Hunter.

Many Republicans and even some Democrats directed a harsh word or two at Joe Biden for promising many times he wouldn’t pardon Hunter, and then turning around and doing exactly that.

It was Charles P. Pierce, in Esquire, who wrote, “Anybody Remember Neil Bush? Nobody defines Poppy Bush’s presidency by his son’s struggles or the pardons he issued on his way out of the White House. The moral: Shut the f— up about Hunter Biden, please. … [The] lucky American businessman[‘s]… father exercised his unlimited constitutional power of clemency to pardon the Lucky American Businessman for all that S&L business way back when. The president’s name was George H.W. Bush. The Lucky American Businessman was his son, Neil.”

Only, a report in RedState pointed out that, “Evidently, there were no editors around to check his claim because he doubled down.”

The problem was that Neil Bush never was given a pardon by his president father, George H.W. Bush.

A legacy media tragicomedy in 3 acts, by @CharlesPPierce and @esquire. HT @KFILE pic.twitter.com/sCl4yfY4Ue

— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) December 4, 2024

Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley joined the conversation:

…All columnists can make mistakes and you correct them and you move on. However, Esquire and Pierce have long viciously attacked those with opposing views as purveyors of disinformation. The desire to protect Biden in his abuse of official power seemed to override every other…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 4, 2024

…It appears that not enough people were willing to believe that President Bush pardoned his son Neil. Pierce asked “Anybody Remember Neil Bush?” The problem is that many did…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 4, 2024

RedState pointed out, “It’s hard not to laugh when one of these extremist liberal outlets faceplants.”

The publication tried to fix the story, then deleted it.

No one should be surprised that President Joe Biden lied when he said he would not pardon his corrupt son Hunter before wandering out of office. As much as journalists want to pretend this is just a Dear Old Dad rescue scenario, Hunter Biden enriched most of the Biden clan in his foreign influence-peddling projects, including Joe and Jill.

No one’s surprised that Joe Biden would commit this outrage and then fly to Africa to get out of the earshot of reporters. His entire presidency seemed designed to avoid reporters, and never mind that about 95% of them are Biden voters.

The surprising occurrence was people on the Left complaining now that Donald Trump has been reelected that the Hunter pardon ruins all their talking points about nobody being above the law. It “muddies the water” of their anti-Trump crusades. How did these supposedly smart people figure this scandal was going to end?

New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker wrote the pardon would “make it harder for Democrats to defend the integrity of the Justice Department and stand against Mr. Trump’s unapologetic plans to use it for political purposes.”

At this late and ridiculous juncture, Baker and other journalists are still engaged in the fiction that the Biden Justice Department wasn’t used for political purposes, and certainly not like Trump, who wants “retribution.”

Just start with the Biden Justice Department’s oppressively overwrought prosecution of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. More than 1,000 Americans have been convicted (a large chunk of them in plea deals), and about 350 trials are still pending. Almost four years later, the FBI is still hunting down suspects. It’s easy to categorize this aggression as “retribution” for challenging Joe Biden’s election certification.

Take 72-year-old “Praying Grandma” Rebecca Lavrenz, who’s now serving six months of home confinement in Colorado after being found guilty in August of this year. Her “crime”? Lavrenz watched other rioters breach barricades and overrun a police line on the Capitol’s Rotunda steps, prosecutors said. She then spent approximately 10 minutes inside the Capitol.

Prosecutors sought 10 months behind bars. Ten months for 10 minutes. Anyone who doesn’t think this sounds ridiculously overwrought probably watches MSNBC 12 hours a day. This is the kind of “Jan. 6 criminal” the leftists are already protesting might be pardoned by Trump next year. How does Grandma compare to Hunter Biden’s tax evasion and gun crimes?

The Justice Department started investigating Hunter Biden in 2018 (but nobody reported it). The FBI kept Hunter Biden’s laptop under wraps to protect the Bidens. Under Joe Biden, they kept slow-walking the case. CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig called the delay “preposterous” in 2023. He said, “Five years? That’s a five-week investigation.”

Joe Biden’s Justice Department tried to toss the whole case in the trash can (like Hunter Biden’s gun) with a plea deal in 2023. Only a federal judge stopped that outrage, which led inescapably to the pardon outrage. But Joe Biden screamed in his pardon memo that all this delay and attempted deconstruction was a Hunter persecution. Give us all a break.

All the reporters who lecture us about the perils of disinformation and misinformation ruining democracy are the same ones who still pretend that the Biden Justice Department is the pristine antonym of a partisan agency. To use their own formulation, “there is no evidence” that either the Justice Department or their pompom squad in the press have acted in a nonpartisan manner during the Biden presidency.

The Hunter pardon doesn’t muddy the waters. The leftist press have been churning mud into the waters this whole time.

Penelope Hegseth, the mother of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, accused the media of mistreating her family during a Wednesday interview in response to the leak of a disparaging email she sent to her son in 2018.

Penelope emailed her son on April 30, 2018 as he went through a divorce to condemn his alleged mistreatment and belittling of women “for his own power and ego,” The New York Times first reported. Six years later, his mother told “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy that she wrote to her son “in haste” during a difficult time for their family and said that she wants to “discredit” the media for allegedly threatening her before publishing the email.

“I am here to tell the truth, to tell the truth to the American people and tell the truth to the senators on [Capitol Hill], especially our female senators,” Penelope said. “I really hope that you will not listen to the media and that you will listen to Pete … Let’s go back 7 years, which, if we all went back 7 years, we would see that we are not the people that we are today. But they were going through, Pete and his wife at the time, were going through a very difficult divorce. It was a very emotional time, and I’m sure many of you across the country understand how difficult divorce is on a family. There’s emotions, we say things, and I wrote that in haste, I wrote that with deep emotions, I wrote that as a parent.”

“I want to say something about the media, and part of today is to discredit the media and how they operate. When they contact you, I let a few phone calls go, but then they call you and say — they threaten you. That’s what they do. They say, ‘unless you make a statement, we will publish it as is.’ And I think that’s a despicable way to treat anyone, threats are dangerous and they’re hard on families,” Hegseth’s mother continued.

Penelope said that she wrote a follow-up email to Pete about two hours later to apologize, and assured viewers that herself and her son have a great relationship. She told The New York Times in a phone interview that she disavows her statements made in her initial email about his treatment of women.

“It is not true. It has never been true,” she told the Times. “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.”

Hegseth’s ex-wife, Samantha Deering, filed for divorce in 2017 after her then-husband had impregnated former Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet, whom he later married in 2019, according to The Independent. The defense nominee reportedly admitted to having five affairs during his first marriage to Meredith Schwartz, who filed for divorce in 2008, according to Vanity Fair.

Update: Four more FOX employees say the NBC story about Pete Hegseth is false. pic.twitter.com/jenQeXdHEp

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) December 4, 2024

Move over Pete Hegseth: Trump considering Ron DeSantis for U.S. Defense secretary

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Political analyst Bill Maher says he “may quit” his “Real Time” show due to the return of Donald Trump to the presidency.

The celebrity pundit recently hosted leftist actress Jane Fonda on his “Club Random” podcast, and explained it would be impossible to avoid talking about Trump because politics are central to the HBO broadcast.

WATCH (Some graphic language included):

NEW: Bill Maher says he ‘may quit’ his -Real Time- show because he doesn’t want to deal with covering Donald Trump

“I’m shitting my pants. I mean, I may quit because I don’t want to do another”

“I did all the Trump stuff before anybody. I said he was a con man before anyone… pic.twitter.com/7leOcGw3H0

— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) December 3, 2024

MAHER: I’m sh***ing my pants.

FONDA: It’s hard to believe.

MAHER: I mean, I may quit because I don’t want to do another … I did all the Trump stuff before anybody.

I called him a con man before anyone else; he’s a mafia boss. I said he wasn’t going to concede the election.

I’ve seen this f***ing …

FONDA: Then how come he’s so hostile to Jimmy Kimmel and not to you?

MAHER: He’s very hostile to me! He tweets about me every week! I mean, I’m bored with it.

FONDA: So, find a new thing to do.

MAHER: The show is the politics; there’s no other thing, and he’s going to dominate the news like he always does!

Cullen Linebarger at the Gateway Pundit noted: “If Maher does follow through and quit, this may prove the start of other far-left late-night hosts, such as Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, throwing in the towel. The only things America would miss are the tears.”

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

Follow Joe on Twitter @JoeKovacsNews

NewsNation host Chris Cuomo and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith on Monday urged President Joe Biden to pardon President-elect Donald Trump.

Cuomo and Smith’s suggestion on “CUOMO” followed Biden pardoning his son Hunter Biden on Sunday. Despite special counsel Jack Smith’s two federal cases against Trump no longer moving forward, the ESPN star expressed a belief that it would benefit the nation to fully move on from the president-elect’s legal troubles.

WATCH:

“You know what else Biden should do? And I know people gonna get upset about this, but just think about it before you crazy on me,” Cuomo said. “Not you — everybody else. If I were he, I would pardon Trump. I would pardon Trump. I would say this has got to stop.”

“You know something? Honestly, as crazy as this sounds, Chris, that’s exactly what I would do. That’s exactly what I would do. Enough’s enough. You know what? You’re the Democrats, you lost the election. You got your butt whipped,” Smith responded. “You couldn’t prevent him from going back to the White House. You know, more than a dozen cases have been dropped against him. The cases that have been ruled against him, he’s going to appeal, and he’ll probably get off from having to deal with all of that. It’s time to move forward.”

Smith also likened the potential move by Biden to pardon Trump to former President Gerald Ford pardoning former President Richard Nixon, saying that decision “was for the good of the country.”

MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg said on Nov. 25 that the special counsel’s move to dismiss his election interference case against Trump left open the “possibility” for later prosecution following his second term in office.

“In this motion, Jack Smith says that yes, ‘the Constitution requires dismissal in this context, consistent with the temporary nature of immunity afforded to a sitting president, it doesn’t require dismissal with prejudice,’” Greenberg said. “And then goes on to say, ‘immunity from prosecution for sitting president would not preclude such prosecution once the president’s term is over or he is otherwise removed from office by [resignation] or impeachment.’ So there is a possibility here that potentially he could be prosecuted down the line.”

However, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner explained that Trump could evade ever facing prosecution by pardoning himself or making a deal for Vice President-elect JD Vance to pardon him.

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“The View” co-hosts attempted to justify President Joe Biden’s pardoning of his son, Hunter, by claiming Monday that the president took that action to protect him from President-elect Donald Trump.

Biden formally issued a sweeping pardon for his son relating to his conviction on three felony gun charges, the nine charges he faced in California for allegedly failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019. The lame duck president’s pardon also effectively closes the door on any potential charges relating to his son’s time on a now-defunct Ukrainian gas company’s board and an alleged influence peddling scheme. Co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Ana Navarro argued Biden initially did not intend to pardon Hunter, but decided to do so in order to protect his son from Trump’s alleged plan of executing “retribution and vindictiveness” on his political opponents.

“It’s a precedent for all of us to open our eyes because we’ve elected someone who is in a similar situation [Trump], who didn’t have a drug problem, who knew what he was doing, who clearly stood and said ‘I can do this,’ and he did it,” Goldberg said. “So I think, for many, many reasons, this is very different than any other situation that we have ever dealt with because when we’re talking about who gets a pardon and who doesn’t get a pardon, this man, I think, Biden had no intention of pardoning Hunter. And I think the more stuff that went down, I think he said ‘well why am I busting my behind to stay straight and do this when no one else is doing it?’”

“I think what happened in the meantime that we have to be cognizant of is that Donald Trump campaigned on retribution, vindictiveness and vengeance,” Navarro added. “He has appointed people to law enforcement positions who have said ‘we are here for retribution and vindictiveness.’ So Joe Biden could not leave his son, Hunter, his only son, at the mercy of these people who are saying they’re going to take retribution.”

WATCH: 

Navarro, along with co-host Sunny Hostin, argued that Trump’s pardoning of his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, Charles Kushner, is far worse than Biden’s pardoning of Hunter. The president-elect pardoned Kushner in December 2020 after he had been convicted of tax fraud and other crimes in 2004.

“Trump did escape responsibility for all his crimes,” co-host Sunny Hostin said. “He’s nominating Charles Kushner, who he pardoned as you mentioned, as the ambassador to France. Do you know what nice, cushy job that any felon would like? And so, please with the hypocritical pearl clutching by this country. Eric Holder said it very well, ‘no U.S. attorney would have charged this case given the underlying facts that have been investigated for five years.’ Less than, get this, .09% of people are prosecuted, are indicted, charged and found guilty of lying on a gun form. The only reason that Hunter Biden was gone after and charged, indicted and found guilty is because his dad’s name wasn’t Joe Smith, it was Joe Biden. And that’s the truth of it.”

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said the pardoning sends the message that the nation’s institutions only benefit elites, and criticized Biden and the White House for repeatedly stating that Hunter would not receive a pardon from his father. Goldberg stated that Biden “can do whatever he wants to” because he is the president of the United States, leading Griffin to say that is a dangerous precedent.

Biden said in a Sunday statement that very few Americans get prosecuted for writing false information on a gun purchase form or for not paying taxes on time that they later paid back. A Delaware jury convicted Hunter on three felony charges in June for purchasing a Colt Cobra in 2018 while knowingly under the influence of drugs and for lying on his gun purchase form, and he further faced up to 17 years in prison over the six misdemeanor and three felony tax charges brought against him.

Trump referred to the pardoning as an “abuse and miscarriage of justice” in a Truth Social post Monday.

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Dinesh D’Souza has issued an apology to a Georgia man who sued the conservative filmmaker after his “2000 Mules” movie wrongly identified him as a so-called mule repeatedly dropping off ballots.

D’Souza posted a lengthy statement online explaining the situation:

As those who have seen the film or read the book know, “2000 Mules” was based on cell phone geolocation data collected and reviewed by True the Vote. An analysis of this data revealed highly suspicious patterns of certain cell phones, which were recorded in the location of ten or more dropboxes. This data was the premise of the film.

During the production of this film, as a supplement to the geolocation data, True the Vote provided my team with ballot drop box surveillance footage that had been obtained through open records requests. We were assured that the surveillance videos had been linked to geolocation cell phone data, such that each video depicted an individual who had made at least 10 visits to drop boxes. Indeed, it is clear from the interviews within the film itself that True the Vote was correlating the videos to geolocation data.

We recently learned that surveillance videos used in the film may not have actually been correlated with the geolocation data.

I know that the film and my book create the impression that these individuals were mules that had been identified as suspected ballot harvesters based on their geotracked cell phone data. While all of these individuals’ images were blurred and unrecognizable, one of the individuals has since come forward publicly and has initiated a lawsuit over the use of his blurred image in the film and the book. I owe this individual, Mark Andrews, an apology. I now understand that the surveillance videos used in the film were characterized on the basis of inaccurate information provided to me and my team. If I had known then that the videos were not linked to geolocation data, I would have clarified this and produced and edited the film differently.

We operated in good faith and in reliance on True the Vote. We continue to have confidence in their work and also in the basic message of “2000 Mules,” namely, that the 2020 election was not the “most secure election in US history”—far from it!—and that there was systematic election fraud sufficient to call the outcome into question. We also continue to have faith that True the Vote’s underlying geolocation data and analysis uncovered highly suspicious cell phone travel patterns, including a significant number of cell phone IDs that were recorded at more than ten drop box locations. While the video in the film created an incorrect inference as to Mr. Andrews, the underlying premise of the film holds true.

Indeed, the accuracy of the general proposition of ‘2000 Mules” was publicly confirmed recently by the disclosure of a leading Democratic organizer, who admitted to an undercover journalist that the premise of “2000 Mules” is accurate.

Again, I apologize to Mr. Andrews. I make this apology not under the terms of a settlement agreement or other duress, but because it is the right thing to do, given what we have now learned. While I do not believe Mr. Andrews was ever identified by the film or book, I am sorry for any harm he believes he and his family has suffered as a result of “2000 Mules.”

D’Souza is also critical of some news coverage of his apology, as Mediaite ran a story with the headline: “Dinesh D’Souza Quietly Admits 2020 Stolen Election Film Was Wrong, Apologizes to Man He Identified As a ‘Ballot Harvester.'”

The filmmaker responded to the Mediaite story, stating: “Contrary to the impression given here, I emphasize that the general conclusion of ‘2000 Mules’ is sound. But the part of my statement that contradicts your headline has been quietly omitted from this article.”

Contrary to the impression given here, I emphasize that the general conclusion of “2000 Mules” is sound. But the part of my statement that contradicts your headline has been quietly omitted from this article https://t.co/EMtSrLkLql

— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) December 2, 2024

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FARAH: The ‘2000 Mules’ team has been jailed, vilified, sued, slandered

Leftists before and throughout the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration have schemed with social media companies to censor political views they don’t like.

Evidence shows sometimes the social media companies have been pleased to help, other times they’ve been targeted by government mandates. One of the biggest scandals was over the FBI’s push, targeting legacy and social media, to suppress the accurate reporting during the 2020 election season of the scandals involving the Biden family.

A survey later showed that agenda likely handed the White House to Biden.

But one of those mandate agendas, in the state of California, now is under fire in a courtroom.

“California’s war against political speech is censorship, plain and simple. We can’t trust the government to decide what is true in our online political debates,” explained ADF lawyer Phil Sechler.

“Rumble is one of the few online voices stepping up against this trend of censorship while other platforms and sites cave to totalitarian regimes censoring Americans. Rumble is standing for free speech even when it is hard. Other online platforms and media companies must see these laws for what they are—a threat to their existence.”

The case being brought by the ADF on behalf of Rumble is against California’s mandates.

“To defend the constitutionally protected right to freely post political content online, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of Rumble and Rumble Canada,” the legal team said.

The problem is that California lawmakers have adopted laws recently that target and punish speakers for posting certain political commentary online.

One of the laws, in fact, is AB 2655 which requires also requires large online platforms like Rumble to act as the government’s censorship police and remove such content from their sites.

“California is forcing Rumble to alter its speech and censor its users’ speech, while also compelling the platform’s speech, in violation of the First Amendment,” the ADF reported.

The state’s infringement on the U.S. Constitution developed a few months ago when Gov. Gavin Newsom lost his cool over a parody video of Kamala Harris.

He said the video should be outlawed, and the Democrat-controlled California legislature then fast-tracked its agenda, which Newsom quickly signed.,

AB 2839 censors speech by using vague standards to punish people for posting certain content about elections, including political memes and parodies of politicians, and AB 2655 requires large online platforms to censor much of that speech, the legal team said.

ADF said in the lawsuit one law deputizes Rumble to restrict others’ speech, and also puts the company under the requirement to alter the content and viewpoint of its own speech.

“The law forces Rumble to train its team to remove and label content based on inherently subjective terms that pollsters and government officials can’t even agree on, like what harms electoral prospects or what undermines confidence in an election. And if Rumble doesn’t comply, AB 2655 authorizes officials to file suits against it,” the ADF said.

The action follows a similar legal charge against the state, on behalf of the Babylon Bee and California lawyer Kelly Chang Rickert, that was filed earlier.

California officials admitted as a result of that filing they cannot enforce AB 2839 after a federal district court ruled that the law likely violates the First Amendment.

Over the course of 2024, SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly has repeatedly called out corporate media for defending President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and related hot takes, sparking viral moments on her podcast.

Liberal corporate media ratings have significantly dropped post-presidential election, with networks like MSNBC losing 53% of their audience and CNN losing 47%, according to Forbes. For months, Kelly has been warning media pundits about their actions.

1. Kelly Slams CBS’ Scott Pelley For Being A ‘Dumbass’

In March, Kelly singled out CBS’ “60 Minutes” host Scott Pelley following his interview with the parental rights group Moms for Liberty. During the interview, the network and Pelley reportedly censored controversial books that Moms for Liberty had shared with them prior to the interview.

Kelly accused the interview of being “manipulated” to portray the parental rights group negatively, calling Pelley a “dumbass” and noting how “inappropriate sexual content” is prevalent in schools nationwide.

“It’s happening! It’s happening with race. It’s happening with gender and it’s happening with inappropriate sexual content,” Kelly continued. “All you must do is open your eyes [and] your ears. Get out of your stupid myopic media circles, for once, and think about somebody else’s children. This is what’s so frustrating, Stu. This is why I was disappointed in the segment. I know that they manipulated Moms for Liberty. I know they weren’t fair to them.”

WATCH:

“But this is why you need – fucking have me on Scott Pelley! I dare you: Put me on,” Kelly challenged. “I will go on CBS News and you and I can have it out one-on-one, or you come on my show, wherever you want to do it. And we’ll have a little redo and we’ll do it live! So you can’t cut me up. But even if you do cut me up, I’m ready for you. Because you will hear this shit in every answer I will give. And why is that? Because I have three children who are 14, 12 and 10 – I’ve lived this!”

2. Kelly Rips MSNBC Hosts Who Mocked Voters’ Illegal Immigration Concerns

Throughout President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign, the former president emphasized his efforts to shut down the U.S. southern border and protect Americans, as millions of illegal immigrants have crossed into the country. During Super Tuesday election coverage in March, MSNBC hosts Jen Psaki, Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid were heard mocking Virginia’s exit polls, which showed immigration was a top concern for the state’s voters.

After playing a clip from the night on her show, the SiriusXM host called out the panel, noting that “they’ll learn” the truth come November.

“Migrant crime is not ‘a thing’ – tell it to the family of the 14-year-old girl in Campbell County, Virginia, who was just sexually assaulted by an illegal from Venezuela who’s now been arrested and charged after he crossed illegally into El Paso, Texas, this past September and released into the United States by the Feds,” Kelly said.

“In Fairfax County Public Schools, roughly 20% of students struggle to speak English. Migration has completely reshaped the Commonwealth of Virginia where I used to live as well. They laugh and sneer at their own peril. They’ll learn in November what the truth is,” Kelly continued.

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3. Kelly Hits CBS News For Editing Harris Interview

In October, Kelly hit CBS News for their whitewash editing of Harris’ response in her interview with “60 Minutes.”

In a rare sit-down with corporate media to answer questions about her policies, “60 Minutes” posted a teaser clip of the interview on X, showing Harris stumbling as she described how “the work” of the Biden-Harris administration has “resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”

However, in the later edited version on YouTube, she was seen clearly stating, “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”

“So by the time they aired the interview in full on Monday night they had cleaned up the answer. They had pulled a much shorter, tighter but still inane phrase from a different part of her answer and they whitewashed the word salad and sort of got rid of all the word salad and boiled it down to like one green pepper. It was no longer a salad, it was just one green pepper that you could understand and eat easily,” Kelly said.

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“Oh my God. I mean you see what they did don’t you? It’s so nakedly partisan and desperate to save her. That first answer is just classic Kamala Harris isn’t it?” Kelly said. “This is CBS running cover for Kamala Harris. I’m amazed they had the guts to do it given that they had released the tease.”

Following the backlash from the edit, Harris’ campaign released a statement to Variety noting they “do not control CBS’s production decisions and refer questions to CBS.”

4. Kelly Tears Into ‘Dumb’ Mika Brzezinski’s Defense Of Harris

In mid-October, Kelly slammed MSNBC again for its defense of Harris’ heated interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, homing in on the network’s host Mika Brzezinski for applauding Harris’ pushback against the Fox host.

“She [Harris] decided to get, once again, to feigned indignation over him allegedly playing the wrong sound bite, as if like Trump didn’t say it and that’s what Brett was trying to get. That’s not at all — he’s trying to get you to respond to his defense. It’s called an opportunity for you, madam, to take a shot at Trump’s defense,” Kelly said.

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“She wouldn’t do it, she just feigned indignation and this is their favorite clip over on MS[NBC] this morning, oh, [with] Mika Brzezinski [saying,] ‘Good for her! Bret Baier used to be a respected journalist. He’s a hack! He queued up the wrong —’ That’s not what Trump said. You people are too stupid to live,” Kelly added. “This is so dumb, you’re so dumb! Either you’re dumb or you’re dishonest I think probably both to be perfectly honest.”

5. Kelly Torches ‘Morning Joe’ Hosts For ‘180’ On Trump

Since the election, Kelly called out Brzezinski and her co-host Joe Scarborough after they revealed they visited Trump in a face-to-face meeting at Mar-a-Lago for the first time in several years. Kelly accused them of making a “180” turn on the former president as they and their guests on “Morning Joe” have compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and alleged he would be a fascist dictator.

“I searched for a way to respond appropriately, and I called on my ten years as a litigator in addition to my now 20 as a journalist,” Kelly said. “I think I found the perfect phrase. Go fuck yourselves. Go fuck yourselves, you dishonest jokes of faux journalists. What an absurd farce that was, Glenn. Which one was insincere? He’s Hitler or now we’re gonna speak truth to power and find a way of speaking to and working with Donald Trump? Which one was a lie?”

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Despite Brzezinski and Scarborough later claiming they received supportive calls about their potential decision to “restart communications” with Trump, viewers of the show posted their disapproval of the move online.

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(THE GATEWAY PUNDIT) – Donald Trump has not even been sworn in yet and White House journalists are already saying that they are ‘exhausted’ by the second Trump administration. Don’t you feel bad for them?

The vast majority of these people like it when Democrats are in charge because they can just act like stenographers, taking the government’s word on everything and rarely asking questions about anything.

Suddenly, when Trump (or any Republican, really) is in charge, they remember that they have to do their jobs and ask questions about things. Almost overnight, they feel the need to ‘fact check’ everything the government tells them. No wonder they’re tired.

Apparently, Whoopi Goldberg – a co-host of ABC’s “The View,” which is one of the most liberally focused political opinion television programs ever produced – felt she needed a new topic to fuel the flames of the show’s usual outrageous rhetoric critical of American values. As with most of the co-hosts, where facts do not exist to support their false assertions, they make them up.

A case in point resulted in Whoopi creating for herself the role of an innocent victim. Like a lion tossed meat, the audience – almost all of whom probably voted for Kamala Harris – consumed Whoopi’s victimhood story. While acknowledging it was only conjecture on her part, she fed her audience the idea she had been shunned by a business purely for her politics. Even if this were accurate, it was hypocritical for her to take such offense as one who has often ranted on and on about all things conservative, seldom backing up what she says with facts.

Whoopi claimed she had contacted a bakery – which she would not identify by name but was later reported to be Holtermans in Staten Island, N.Y. – to place orders for a special birthday dessert. When she placed two orders – one for a Nov. 6 taping of the show and one for her birthday on Nov. 13 – she was told there were operational issues with the bakery’s equipment. Whoopi claimed, “They said that their ovens had gone down, all kinds of stuff, but folks went and got them anyway.” She added, “It can’t be because I’m a woman, but perhaps they did not like my politics.”

The bakery’s owner, Jill Holtermann, acknowledged Whoopi had placed the orders but, due to a problem with their boilers, Holtermann became concerned about meeting the delivery dates for the show. She explained she did not want to take the order at first because she “didn’t want to make a commitment that I can’t carry through.” The last thing Holtermann wanted to do was to leave Whoopi in a lurch, awaiting pastries that could not be delivered on time. However, Whoopi chose to take this as a personal affront, rationalizing that it was based on her politics. It was an odd rationalization for Whoopi to jump to unless she recognized she does not represent the voice of reason and that her politics are way out in left field – but that is an issue for a separate discussion.

In any event, Whoopi’s allegation to malign the bakery backfired. Posts online criticized her for failing to move out of America like she had promised if Donald Trump won and suggested viewers “all cancel Whoopi and the witches of The View.” Meanwhile, increased customer orders have been emptying Holtermann’s shelves of its baked goods since the alleged slight.

The hosts of “The View” are renowned for their liberal attacks, regardless of the issue. Why, for example, did Kamala Harris lose to Trump?

Co-host Sunny Hostin proffered that, “As a country, it’s very difficult for people to believe that racism and misogyny, they’re just alive and well. My lived experience tells me that it does still exist, even if your lived experience doesn’t tell you that it exists. The facts support that. It’s not only clear by race, it’s also clear by education. Those who attended college voted for her at a higher degree than those who didn’t.”

But Alyssa Farah Griffin – a member of the Trump administration who voted for Harris – rebuked Hostin’s claims. She said that the “biggest common denominator in this election is people want a good life and ability to provide for their family.” When Hostin escalated the discussion by questioning why more blacks failed to vote for Trump, Griffin corrected her saying that “more of them voted for Donald Trump than [they] had, historically.” Griffin told Hostin she was “missing it” entirely if she believed a “vast majority in this country voted because of racism and misogyny.”

Hostin “tripled down” on her position as if there were no other basis for Harris’ rejection – an ironic claim about a vice president who was among the most unpopular in modern times. Trump won the election by the most votes ever cast for a Republican presidential candidate in our history, but that apparently was insufficient to convince Hostin his victory was rooted in anything other than misogyny and racism.

But the claim was supported by Hostin’s co-hosts – who collectively form a five-person female panel. As such, the man-bashing could easily lead one to believe panel members are philogynists themselves as “The View” has never included a male co-host. And, when male guests appear on the show – mostly fellow liberals – the co-hosts have tended to treat them disrespectfully whenever they have ventured into unfriendly territory in promoting conservative values.

For example, on Nov. 15, New York City Mayor Eric Adams appeared on the show and was repeatedly interrupted by the co-hosts as he attempted to make a point. Addressing the fact that politics in America have evolved into verbal attacks on each other rather than having rational discussions, Adams said we needed to “love the country” by engaging in the latter. As he attempted to explain by adding, ‘We’ve reached a point in this country where we no longer want to engage in conversation. They were even calling him Hitler. That’s an insult to …,” he was rudely interrupted by co-host Ana Navarro who, obviously, did not want Adams defending the Democratic name-calling against Trump. It was just one of several interruptions the co-hosts made as Adams endeavored to logically explain himself.

It is interesting that ABC lawyers, who monitor “The View,” felt it necessary to impose the delivery of “legal notes” on the hosts whenever they made inaccurate allegations about people that might trigger litigation. The co-hosts clearly were frustrated by having to read such legal notes handed to them right after making such a claim. The show’s producer revealed that 75 such notices have been read on the program.

Hostin, who is a lawyer and a regular offender, was visibly verklempt as she had to read notices twice in one week after trashing Trump’s Cabinet selections. It had to be particularly embarrassing for her as she is a senior legal correspondent and analyst for ABC News. Hostin’s uncontrolled rants have hurt the program’s viewership. Apparently, Hostin’s contribution to this was clear enough for executives not only to withdraw their commitment to increase her $8 million salary to $12 million but to cut it to $5 million.

Hostin’s chain of mea culpas in having to read, stone-faced, one legal note after another brought back memories of a late 1970s “Saturday Night Live” “Weekend Update” skit. Gilda Radner portrayed Roseanne Roseannadanna – a dimwitted political commentator who continuously misconstrued things, resulting in her having to be corrected by her co-anchor (Dan Aykroyd). Recognizing her error, Radner ended the skit by turning to the audience and sheepishly saying, “Never mind!”

In the play “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, the witches engaged in a chant while mixing a stew – the ingredients of which symbolized their malevolent plans for the Scottish king. As “The View” co-hosts engage in their own chant, we realize it symbolizes their malevolent plans to twist the truth.

(Note: No legal notes were issued by this opinion column!)

(NEW YORK POST) – Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago – after reportedly requesting the meeting with the president-elect to discuss “the incoming administration” Wednesday.

“It’s an important time for the future of American Innovation. Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming Administration,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement provided to The Post.

The Trump-Vance transition team did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment. Stephen Miller, the incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy, confirmed that Zuckerberg met with the president-elect during an appearance on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

There’s something about Donald Trump winning an election that drives journalists crazy. The National Press Club in the nation’s capital is an epicenter of media arrogance, as anyone could see from its Nov. 21 “Fourth Estate Award Gala,” in which they proclaimed they were honoring the “fearless pursuit of truth.”

But as always, the “truth” is expected to lead to “justice,” which in their view is the opposite of Trump winning the presidency again. Trump’s victory demoralized journalists. They felt like 76.8 million Americans completely ignored their years and years of besmirching Trump as a fascist threat to democracy.

Axios.com co-founder Jim VandeHei uncorked a temper tantrum at the awards ceremony, as he boasted about being in a “war for truth, for freedom.” Translation: For the Democrats. He can’t stand anyone attacking them for making “fake news” or for, ahem, engaging in nonstop Democratic Party talking points. Joy! Vibes! Brat! And all that.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, like, everything we do is under fire,” VandeHei complained. “Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day, or X today, saying, like, ‘We are the media, you are the media.’ My message to Elon Musk is: Bulls–t! You’re not the media. You having – you having a blue check mark, a Twitter handle and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter!”

This is a little funny, since Axios.com was touted by the National Press Club for its “smart brevity.” When it writes little bursts of text for busy, governing-elite people with low attention spans, they’re still hailed as “smart.”

At 1 a.m. on election night, as it became apparent Trump would win again, Musk tweeted, “You are the media.” This enraged VandeHei because journalism is an elite profession, for highly educated people who educate the masses, even if the masses don’t accept their lessons.

VandeHei lamented, “Being a reporter’s hard. Really hard. You have to care. You have to do the hard work. You have to get up every single day and say, ‘I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism.’ You don’t do that by popping off on Twitter. You don’t do that by having an opinion. You do it by doing the hard work.”

VandeHei seems to forget that part of the reason people don’t trust journalists is they show a lot of favoritism. They fear being seen as too centrist by their colleagues. They spend large amounts of time popping off on Twitter and opinionating on cable television. Opinions are more highly prized than investigations. Investigative reporters aren’t making Scarborough money.

Naturally, “Morning Joe” played some of VandeHei’s tantrum, and Joe Scarborough asked for a “slow clap,” like VandeHei was Tom Cruise at the end of “Top Gun.”

Scarborough oafishly equated all media criticism with lying: “It continues to need to be said when all of the garbage that’s flying around on social media, lying about reporters, lying about the hard work they do, lying about the hard work editors do, lying about everything up and down about not only their alternative set of facts, but alternative set of facts about what people like you do.”

Did he produce any examples? No. Because ovations and overbroad opinionating are all that matters.

If “smart” journalists want to figure out the election results, they can’t conclude that every media criticism is a lie. They have to engage with critiques and stop thinking they are the most heroic and crucial actors in politics, that democracy dies when people unsubscribe. They need to talk less and listen more. Don’t count on that.

Podcast host Joe Rogan called out Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday during his show, warning that the military-industrial complex could be leading the United States into World War III before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalated in November after President Joe Biden officially authorized Ukraine on Sunday to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles for strikes inside Russia. On “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan’s guest, American record producer Scott Storch, told the host he felt “safer” overall knowing Trump would be in office for the next four years.

“What I don’t feel safer [about] is right now they’re launching missiles into Russia,” Rogan responded. “How are you allowed to do that when you’re on the way out? Like the people don’t want you to be there anymore. This should be some sort of a pause for significant actions that could potentially start World War III. Maybe that would be a good thing that we would like to avoid from a dying former president. The whole thing is nuts.”

Rogan went on to read a headline claiming Zelensky said Russian President Vladmir Putin is “terrified” before calling out the world leader, highlighting how intercontinental ballistic missiles can carry nuclear weapons.

“Zelensky says Putin is terrified. F*** you, man. F*** you people. You f***ing people are about to start World War III,” Rogan said. “F***ing insanity because those intercontinental ballistic missiles can have nukes on them. This didn’t, but if it does the whole world changes and it changes because the military industrial complex and it changes because of the money that’s going to Ukraine. It changes because the outgoing president, or whoever the f*** is actually running the country, has decided to do something f***ing insane.”

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“We’re all sitting there watching it and people are cheering it on CNN was saying, ‘Like finally’ — see what their headline was about Biden giving Zelensky the ability to use long-range missiles. U.S. made long range — it’s not like nobody knows where they came from,” Rogan added. “It’s not like nobody knows we’ve been funding this. It’s a proxy war. The whole thing is f***ing insane.”

During a September interview with Fox News, Zelensky said Putin was “afraid” to use nuclear weapons due to his love for his life, downplaying the possibility of a full-scale war between the two countries. On Wednesday, the Ukrainian president continued to call out others, telling Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst that Israel “has been afraid of Putin,” adding they made “a mistake on a political level” by holding back support for Ukraine.

After Ukraine fired its first set of U.S.-provided long-range missiles on Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy shut down Wednesday, with staff told to shelter in place amid concerns over a “significant” aerial attack. The idea of the two countries triggering World War III is not new, as Ukraine’s former military commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, told Politico on Thursday that in “2024 we can absolutely believe that the Third World War has begun.”

Just two days after winning the presidential election, Trump revealed that he had warned Putin not to escalate tensions with Ukraine during a phone call. The former president had campaigned on a promise to end the overseas war and ease tensions between the countries.

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

(THE NATIONAL PULSE) – Technology and space exploration billionaire Elon Musk appears to be mulling a potential purchase of the Comcast-owned, left-wing MSNBC news network. Since the 2024 election, MSNBC has seen its ratings plummet, and its parent company is moving to sell the flagging network along with other media properties, including CNBC.

The discussion of a potential Musk bid for MSNBC is catching fire on his social media network, X (formerly Twitter), after a post by President-elect Donald J. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., suggesting Musk purchase the tanking network. “Hey [Elon Musk] I have the funniest idea ever!!!” he wrote on Friday, prompting Musk to respond: “How much does it cost?”

Following up on Donald Trump Jr.’s post, Musk responded to the announcement of Comcast’s sale of MSNBC, stating: “The most entertaining outcome, especially if ironic, is most likely,” suggesting he actually intends to consider a bid.

“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin had to read three legal notes on-air in under three minutes Friday while discussing President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks.

Trump announced former Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi of Florida as his pick for attorney general after former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration for the position. Hostin’s first two legal statements were read after the co-hosts discussed allegations of sexual misconduct by Gaetz and Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense.

“I have a legal note,” Hostin said. “Matt Gaetz has long denied all allegations and has not been charged with any crime. Also another legal note, Pete Hegseth’s lawyer said he paid the woman in 2023 to head off the threat of a baseless lawsuit. He had denied any wrongdoing.”

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“That’s interesting,” Behar said. “Pay off the witness.”

Prior to reading the two legal notes in under 40 seconds, Hostin claimed there were allegations of bribery surrounding Bondi, who served two terms as attorney general of Florida, and her handling of Trump University.

After Behar promoted upcoming segments on the show and an off-Broadway play she wrote, Hostin cut in with a third legal note.

“I’m sorry, everyone, I have another legal note,” Hostin said. “Both Trump and Pam Bondi have denied allegations of a quid pro quo that his past donation played any role in her office’s decision to not take legal action against Trump University when she was, of course, the attorney general of Florida.”

“This show is just going to be legal notes and things for sale,” co-host Ana Navarro groused.

Bondi represented Trump during his first impeachment trial and during his efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election.

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

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