'Prosecuting a longtime critic'

In the midst of the governor’s race, the New Jersey Republican Party is asking the U.S. Justice Department to send federal monitors to watch the vote counting in a Democrat-run county that has blocked security cameras at ballot storage locations.   President Donald Trump was the first Republican to carry the Democrat-leaning Passaic County in a presidential race since 1992, though Democrat Kamala Harris carried the state in a surprisingly close contest in the blue state.  “Today the NJGOP formally demanded the Department of Justice’s Division of Civil Rights send monitors to oversee the vote-by-mail counting process conducted by the Passaic County Board of Elections,” the state Republican Party announced in a post on X. “When officials resist transparency, it raises serious questions about what they are trying to hide.” ?Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, and in Passaic County, that principle is once again being put to the test. Today the NJGOP formally demanded the Department of Justice’s Division of Civil Rights send monitors to oversee the vote-by-mail counting… pic.twitter.com/bmgnaUF55j— New Jersey GOP (@NJGOP) October 20, 2025 The state made the complaint to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, who has sued other states and jurisdictions regarding election integrity matters.  Passaic County Board of Elections Chairman John Currie is also the chairman of the Passaic County Democratic Party.  The Daily Signal contacted the Passaic County office of Board of Election Commissioners and the Passaic County Democratic Party. Neither replied to phone and email inquiries.  The state GOP weighed in on the matter in the county over the weekend.  “The decision by Democratic members of the Passaic County Board of Elections to block the use of security cameras in ballot storage areas and their refusal to require a sign-in/out log for anyone accessing mail-in ballots is alarming,” New Jersey Republican Party Chairman Glenn Paulsen said in a statement on Saturday. “The fact that the [Bureau of Election]’s Chairman also happens to be the County Democratic Chairman makes it even worse.” This doesn’t smell right, folks. pic.twitter.com/DixWB3qG6Q— New Jersey GOP (@NJGOP) October 18, 2025 Passaic County, as noted in my book, “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” has faced voter fraud prosecutions in recent years, primarily with state charges against members of the Paterson, New Jersey City Council.  “In recent years, Passaic County has been home to infamous voter fraud schemes and among the slowest counties to count ballots and certify elections in the entire state,” Paulsen added on Saturday. “Frankly, given that, the Passaic County Republican Party is justified in their suspicion about what happens outside of public view, and the NJGOP stands firmly behind their legal demands for election integrity and transparency.” Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Democrat Mikie Sherrill are facing off in the New Jersey governor’s race.  In May 2020, state investigators uncovered alleged mail-in ballot irregularities and charged two city council members and several associates with election fraud, unauthorized ballot possession, forgery, and tampering with public records. State prosecutors alleged unsealed ballots were collected and altered and 3,190 out of 16,747 ballots cast were disqualified, prompting a judge to order a new election in November 2020.  The Justice Department did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story. But the department typically does not comment on investigations. The post New Jersey County With History of Voter Fraud Could Face DOJ Scrutiny appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As the federal government shutdown nears the end of a third full week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., took time away from Washington and from his home district in New York to visit the blue bastion of California. In a visit to Los Angeles on Sunday, Jeffries advocated for California’s Proposition 50 ballot measure on congressional redistricting.  Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, criticized Jeffries’ past travel to his home state, telling The Daily Signal, “I mean, when you have Hakeem Jeffries show up in Austin, Texas, to try to lecture the Texas Legislature on how to draw district lines, the Democratic Party has become more radicalized. It’s become the party of Bernie Sanders and [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez].” During his California visit, Jeffries told First African Methodist Episcopal Church congregants that “Folks in the government … would rather shut the government down than give health care to everyday Americans,” referencing the fight over the expiring COVID-era enhanced Obamacare subsidies that were meant to be a temporary measure to respond to the national pandemic.  Senate Democrats have pushed to extend the subsidies despite the fact that the federal government has likely lost tens of billions of dollars in fraudulent spending for the benefits, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told The Daily Signal that there was likely “tens of billions of dollars flowing into insurance companies taking off commissions to unscrupulous brokers and agents who are signing up people without their knowledge because they don’t have to pay any premiums for plans that they don’t use.” Jeffries’ visit to California came after Senate Democrats faced bipartisan criticism for planning a political conference at Hotel Yountville, a ritzy California resort that featured a wine tour even as federal workers were furloughed or are being forced to work without pay for the duration of the shutdown.  Proposition 50, the proposed California constitutional amendment, would change how the Golden State draws its congressional districts. Currently, districts for the U.S. House of Representatives are drawn by the bipartisan California Citizens Redistricting Commission. Preempting the commission would put the power of congressional redistricting into the hands of California state lawmakers. Democrats currently hold supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature, so Prop 50 would enable Democrat state lawmakers to further gerrymander California’s congressional districts in response to Republican measures to redistrict in red states, such as Texas.  Republicans have defended their redistricting measures, pointing out President Donald Trump’s increasing support among groups that are not traditionally supporters of the GOP. “President Trump has done very well among minority groups like Hispanics and places like Texas, which is a large part of our population, and so it’s only fair that their voting strength and their Republican strength and across the state can be reflected in these lines,” Cornyn told The Daily Signal. The post Amid Shutdown, Jeffries Visits California to Support Gerrymandering Ballot Measure appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. Here in California—which might be a model for other states as well—Gov. Gavin Newsom has now approved a formal commission to administer reparations to black Californians. And they’re trying not to use the word reparations since it has such a bad connotation. But it’s a bad idea in so many ways. Remember, when California was admitted to the Union, it came in as a free state. It had no prior record of being a slave state. It has never been a slave state. It has no historical baggage as, perhaps, the former Confederacies. So, there’s no argument that people who happen to be in California are owed anything from it, by the state, of any race. The second thing is we don’t know how many black Americans that are residents of California could trace their lineage back to California. In other words, do we really believe that most of the African Americans in California, who came after World War I and during World War II, have descendants that were suffering the fallout from slavery in California? It’s really absurd. The third thing to remember is the black population of California is about 5.4% of the 41 million people. Who are going to be paying the reparations? The so-called white oppressor, victimizer class is only 42%. It is a minority. And many of them can trace their lineage back to the Oklahoma diaspora of the 1930s and ’40s, when they arrived here completely destitute. And then, in addition, we have about 15% to 16% Asian. Some of them came from horrendous conditions in Vietnam. Some of them have families that were Japanese, have received money from the government as direct compensation for property they lost during World War II during the relocations. Some of them can argue that they were oppressed from the 19th century. Leland Stanford Jr., the president of the Southern Union Pacific Railroad, used Chinese labors in a very exploitive manner. The point is that each particular minority group will then argue that they have claims on—whom? Who is going to be the victimizer class when the so-called white population is the minority? Latinos are the majority population. They’re 45%. Are we going to ask people who migrated from Mexico, for the most part, to pay their tax dollars to African Americans who were not living here during slavery? Who is black in a multiracial, intermarried culture? Are we going to go back to the Elizabeth Warren rule? Do we need DNA badges? Are we gonna use the old Confederate measure of one-sixteenth? Sixteen percent to 17% of the California population identify as multiracial. How do we know who is white, who is Hispanic, who is black? It’s very hard to adjudicate that. More importantly, we have had repertory programs. And remember, we are 157 years from the 14th Amendment that guaranteed citizenship for former slaves. We’re 60 years from the EOP, affirmative action and sort of reparations program, of the Great Society that cost, in some computations, about $20 trillion of transfers. And that can include everything from special preferences on the basis of race for hiring, disproportionate impact in admissions to college, equal opportunity programs for small business, etc., etc. So, there has been reparations, and many of them were race-based. The final two considerations, very quickly, is California really had a $20 billion deficit. Gavin Newsom moved the money around and got by the mandatory requirement that California cannot borrow. But it basically cooked the books. It is in a perennial $20-$30 billion deficit crisis each year. This is a state that has the highest income taxes, the highest gas taxes, and among the highest property, not rates, but actual taxes, given valuations of homes, as well as high sales taxes. So, what would be the answer? If you really do want to address inordinate crime rates among the black communities—72% of children are born to one family, a one-parent family; there’s an all-time high illegitimacy rate—then why not work with the black community leaders and suggest that the disintegration of the black family, the two-parent household, is primarily the cause, statistically, why blacks are not achieving the same economic status as, let’s say, Indian Americans or other Asian Americans, Arab Americans, or white Americans? And that can be addressed. If you’re on the left, you can talk about structural racism. And if you’re on the right, you can say the Great Society programs incentivized the destruction of the black family. Whatever the exegesis is, it’s a much better conversation to have than just, as in the past, to hand out billions of dollars to a group, who we don’t know, exactly, who composes it, we don’t know how one qualifies, we don’t know how long they can trace residency in California or if it even matters. And we know that California has had no history of slavery. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post California Was Never a Slave State—So Why Reparations? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Declaring “He has no respect for the law,” Victor Davis Hanson described embattled Virginia attorney general nominee Jay Jones as a representation of the “new Democratic Party.” Hanson, a Daily Signal senior contributor and host of the new podcast “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Words,” appeared Friday on “The Megyn Kelly Show.” Hanson and Kelly discussed Jones’ background of reckless driving, misleading the courts, and threatening his political adversary; revelations that have led to his opponent, incumbent Republican Jason Miyares, taking the lead in the polls. Hanson remarked on Jones’ reckless driving record from February 2022 when he was caught speeding 116 miles per hour—almost double the speed limit—on a Virginia interstate. “That is deliberately saying to people, ‘I’m going to drive this fast and if anyone is in my way, they’re going to be dead, and I don’t care.’ Anyone else who did this would be in jail.” According to Cardinal News seven defendants were tried in the same courthouse, on the same day, with the same crime as Jones. Four out of the seven defendants were driving slower than Jones and yet their punishments were suspended jail time and suspended drivers licenses.  “But Jay Jones is a politician,” said Miyares during the attorney general debate Thursday night. “And he asked the court not to give him any of that, to give him community service. And instead, we now know he misled the court.”  Jones had submitted documents to the court claiming he completed community service hours when the 500 hours reported was time spent working for his own political action committee.  “He has no respect for the rule of law. He’s made that clear,” Hanson told Kelly.  Mamdani vs. Cuomo, Michelle Obama's New Whining, and Bombshell UFO Reporting, with @VDHansonWATCH: pic.twitter.com/bPiT3TT5Om— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) October 17, 2025 Jones has also been under heavy scrutiny for text messages sent in 2022 where he fantasized and threatened to kill Virginia Republican Todd Gilbert, his wife Jennifer and their children. During the debate Miyares noted that these messages were personal. “You know Todd Gilbert,” Miyares said, addressing Jones. “You served with him. Jennifer would come to the General Assembly. She would bring her children. We would see them run in the hallways. They were two and five years old at the time. This wasn’t hypothetical. You actually know Todd. This is a flesh and blood husband. Jennifer is a real mom. These are real kids.”  During the debate Jones claimed he has been held accountable for his actions by the Democrats. Kelly pointed out that he hasn’t been held accountable at all, “No one’s called for him to step down. No one has withdrawn their endorsement, most notably not the woman running for governor, Abigail Spanberger.” Democrat nominee for governor Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears debated the week prior in Norfolk, Virginia. Spanberger was asked four times if she still endorsed Jones but not once did she give a straight answer. “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” premieres Tuesday at The Daily Signal and on your favorite streaming platforms. The post The Daily Signal’s Victor Davis Hanson Talks Virginia Elections on ‘The Megyn Kelly Show’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

AOC Warned Us About Accountants and Who Knew?

  While a new Pentagon press policy has prompted many reporters to stop covering defense issues from inside the Department of War (DoW) building, a copy of the rules obtained by CNSNews reveals that key details of the policy are being mischaracterized by the media. The new policy, intended to prevent leaks of sensitive information, requires reporters to be accompanied by Pentagon staff in certain areas of the building and forbids them from soliciting unauthorized disclosure of that information. In protest, a large majority of news outlets turned in their press badges. However, several media have misrepresented the policy, running headlines such as: "A dark day": Pentagon confiscates badges of Defense reporters – Axios Only 15 reporters remain in Pentagon after press pledge prompted walkouts. This is who they are -  The Independent News outlets reject Pentagon pledge to only report approved info - UPI Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather than agree to new reporting rules – Associated Press Pentagon Reporters from All but 1 Outlet Surrender Press Passes After Trump Admin Demanded They Only Cover Pre-Approved News - People In one article, The Washington Post claims the new rules “prohibit soliciting any information the government doesn’t authorize reporters to have” (emphasis added). The Hill also claims reporters “would need to pledge to not obtain or use any unauthorized material, even if the information is unclassified,” adding that “Media outlets say this is a violation of their First Amendment rights.” But, members of the press are not actually required to “pledge” anything. They’re just expected to sign a statement acknowledging that they’ve been informed of the rule changes. What’s more, the statement explicitly notes that signing does not indicate agreement with the policy: “My signature represents my acknowledgement and understanding of such DoW policies and procedures, even if I do not necessarily agree with such policies and procedures. Signing this acknowledgment does not waive any rights I may have under law.” And, no, the Pentagon did not “confiscate” press badges, as Axios claims in its headline. In actuality, the reporters turned in their press credentials in protest of the new Pentagon policy. Likewise, the Pentagon policy does not prohibit reporters from soliciting or reporting “any unauthorized material” – just that which is either “classified national security information (CNSI)” or “controlled unclassified information (CUI).” And, although authorization is required for dissemination of CNSI or CUI by staff, “Members of the news media are not required to submit their writings to DoW for approval.” Thus, contrary to the People headline, no coverage must be “pre-approved,” though dissemination of CNSI and CUI by staff to reporters does require approval. The Pentagon policy addresses the First Amendment objection as well, explaining that “There is a critical distinction between lawfully requesting information from the government and actively soliciting or encouraging government employees to break the law.” “For clarity, the receipt of unsolicited CNSI or CUI and its subsequent publication is generally protected by the First Amendment and would not, on its own, normally trigger denial, revocation or non-renewal of [Pentagon press credentials],” the policy states. However, encouragment of government staff to break the law is not protected: “The First Amendment does not permit journalists to solicit government employees to violate the law by providing confidential government information.” … “Soliciting or encouraging government employees to break the law falls outside the scope of protected newsgathering activities.” Still, “Nothing in this document requires you to waive any constitutional rights. This in-brief constitutes a description of DoW policies," the policy states. Even if a reporter is caught soliciting CNSI or CUI, the policy suggests that the violation simply “may” be serious enough to warrant disciplinary action: “[S]uch conduct may weigh in the consideration of whether you pose a security or safety risk.” Throughout the document, the policy says that violation of the rules may (not “shall” or “will) result in suspension, denial or non-renewal of press credentials. And, even if disciplinary action is deemed appropriate, the policy provides a thorough appeals process. Ultimately, the Defense Department has the authority to issues rules of access for reporters because “access is not open to the public or the press as a matter of right but is instead a controlled privilege,” the policy explains: “Legally, the press has no greater right of access than the public…this is a privilege extended by the government and not a constitutionally protected right.” As Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist Mollie Hemingway wrote, explaining why her media outlet chose to accept the new Pentagon press policy: “If the new guidelines result in fewer professional con artists and media hoaxers roaming the halls looking for new lies to peddle, so be it.”

Despite plenty of coverage on the Saturday flagship morning and evening newscasts (and into the Sunday shows), ABC, CBS, and NBC were still harping Monday morning on the No Kings protests over the weekend, ignoring the ugly signs from some of the rallies, including more than a few celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The coverage unsurprisingly paled in comparison to how they covered the Tea Party rallies, which we chronicled ahead of the 2010 midterms: ABC’s Good Morning America was predictably the worst with co-host Robin Roberts and virulent Trump hater Rachel Scott was on the case:   NBC’s Today offered an interesting strategy, partnering three stories into one piece: No Kings, the tree-stand threat to Air Force One in Florida, and the President deploying troops to Democrat cities. But it was tying the first two together that was peculiar (yet fitting given the far-left’s rhetoric toward the President):   “We move now to an intensifying FBI investigation in Florida after the Secret Service uncovered a suspicious hunting stand near the Palm Beach Airport where Air Force One frequently lands. That discovery coming on the same weekend that millions of Americans took part in nationwide No Kings rallies against the Trump administration,” co-host Savannah Guthrie began. Senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake started with the tree stand and sprinkled in a No Kings nod (click “expand”): [T]he discovery of that hunting stand in the woods near Palm Beach Airport really raising concerns for a President who has already been the target of two assassination attempts. But the President’s weekend trip to Florida went off without a hitch as around the country, millions gathered to protest a President they say is acting like a king. President Trump back at the White House after a weekend trip to Florida. The FBI investigating a suspicious hunting stand found in a tree near Palm Beach International Airport that has a direct sight line to where the President would have exited Air Force One. A spokesperson for the Secret Service says agents discovered the stand last Thursday before Mr. Trump’s arrival in Florida Friday. A senior official familiar with the investigation said the stand was about 200 yards away from an area where Air Force One does not normally park, but the plane did park there on Friday due to construction. Three sources familiar with the matter say the suspicious stand may have been there for months. And investigators are now looking at several possibilities, including whether it’s an old hunting stand, a perch used by a photographer or a possible threat. [GUN SHOTS] President Trump faced two assassination attempts during his 2024 campaign. After touching on San Francisco as the next possible destination of national guardsmen, Haake said Trump’s “deploying of federal troops in America cities fueling No Kings demonstrations nationwide Saturday with massive crowds gathering form coast-to-coast...rallying against the Trump presidency.” “Organizers said nearly seven million turned out in more than 2,700 demonstrations nationwide. The President asked about the rallies late Sunday...Mr. Trump also taunting demonstrators on social media, sharing two AI-generated videos depicting himself as a king. In one, which NBC News is choosing not to show, dumping what appears to be raw sewage on protesters,” he added. CBS Mornings was the only one to still have a full segment. Co-host Tony Dokoupil said “[m]illions of Americans came together across the country on Saturday to protest against the Trump administration” and insist “our country is in danger of sliding into dictatorship.” Politics reporter Taurean Small gushed “[f]rom Times Square to L.A., millions turned out for the No Kings Day of Protests, pushing back against what they call abuse of power by President Trump.” In between sound from two white liberals in D.C., Small added “[d]emonstrators called out Trump’s policies, including his crackdown on immigration, domestic use of the military and environmental rollbacks.” To his credit, Small found a counter-demonstrator (click “expand”): SMALL: Many Americans calling it exactly that, including House Speaker Mike Johnson who described the protests as anti-American, but not everyone at the rally supported the theme. COUNTER-PROTESTER: Well, I like — I basically like the direction we are going under the Trump administration. [SCREEN WIPE] I want to hear everybody’s voice. This way I know what is real. SMALL: The President trolled demonstrators with social media posts including this AI video of himself flying a fighter jet and dropping brown sludge on protesters. He spoke with reporters last night. TRUMP: I think it’s a joke. I looked at the people. They’re not representative of this country. [SCREEN WIPE] I’m not a king. I my ass off to make our country great. To see the relevant transcripts from October 20, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five). This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2025. > For 2023 and 2024, for 2021 and 2022, for 2020. For 2019. For 2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for: > July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.) Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week. (For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)   ■ New on October 20, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Queen of kooks: Kathy Griffin confirms her TDS and doubts Trump’s election See the posting on the Washington Examiner's site where you can watch the video and read Baker's assessment. A week later, Bedard's article will be posted here.   ■ October 13, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s dour Dana Bash rains on Trump triumph parade (Washington Examiner post) CNN is so addled by its Trump derangement syndrome that its lead hosts couldn’t give the president a break for a day after he made history in bringing the Israel-Hamas war to an end. Consider CNN State of the Union host Dana Bash’s knife-twist on Sunday while her panel discussed Trump and his hope for the first lasting peace in the Middle East in decades. As he traveled to Israel to celebrate the release of hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, Bash turned the discussion to the “split screen” of peace in Gaza with immigration protests and clashes with police and troops back home. Tapping another TDS sufferer, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Bash rained on Trump’s success parade by quoting Dowd’s argument against giving the president the Nobel Peace Prize because some liberals are violently protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, which a majority of voters favor. For that, she wins our Liberal Media Scream of the week. From Sunday morning’s CNN State of the Union: Host Dana Bash: I do want to kind of bring it back to the United States as we talk about what’s happening overseas and kind of the split screen, and Maureen Dowd highlighted just that, the split screen. She said: ‘You can’t get,’ and this is about the Nobel Prize, ‘you can’t get a medal for promoting democracy when you try to overthrow the democracy you were running. … Trump seems oblivious to the paradox of enforcing peace abroad and disrupting it badly at home, of soothing violence overseas and inflaming it here.’ Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Dowd and Bash are the quintessential skunks at the garden party, with Bash the worse offender for deciding, barely 18 hours before the Israeli hostages were released unleashing joy across Israel, it was wise to use some of the limited time on her show to rain on President Trump. She just couldn’t let him have his day of triumph.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.   ■ October 6, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS calls ‘cruelty’ Vought’s ‘erogenous zone’ (Washington Examiner post) In discussing the White House budget chief’s plans for massive federal worker cuts during the government shutdown, a contributor to the Friday show Washington Week with the Atlantic turned a joking comment from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) about Russ Vought into a crude putdown. Host Jeffrey Goldberg played Lee telling Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, “Russ Vought, the OMB director, has been dreaming about this moment, preparing this moment, since puberty. Russ Vought has a plan, and that plan is going to succeed in empowering, further empowering Trump. This is going to be the Democrats’ worst nightmare.” When he turned to the Atlantic’s Ashley Parker for analysis, she ripped Vought’s goals in the government shutdown and said “cruelty” is the goal, and that “is squarely in his erogenous zone.” From Friday’s Washington Week with the Atlantic on PBS: Jeffrey Goldberg: Ashley, who is Russ Vought? What does he want? Ashley Parker: I mean, he wants, as I mentioned at the beginning, sort of the deconstruction of the administrative state of the federal bureaucracy. Goldberg: What are the ideological roots of this? Parker: He’s — I mean, he’s incredibly conservative. He worked in Trump’s first admin. So, there are some people, including Stephen Miller, but there are not actually a ton of people who worked in the first Trump administration and then came back for a second tour of duty, but Russ Vought is one of them. And he came back, like the president himself, sort of stronger, bolder, more empowered, more creative with his interpretations of laws and what’s acceptable than ever. And he used his — Goldberg: Russ Vought, faster and furiouser. Parker: Yes. Goldberg: Yes. Parker: And he used those years out of power to basically create this document that you mentioned called Project 2025, that — it’s a dense, dense policy document. That is sort of his wheelhouse, his actual policy. And it tells sort of all the ways you can, first of all, just utterly minimize the government, tear away at it, tear it down, and use it to push through deeply conservative priorities. And I also, based on my reporting, agree with Sen. Lee that this is squarely in his erogenous zone. And that when he said what he wants to do, I mean, to use a phrase that was popularized by one of our colleagues at the Atlantic, cruelty is the point. Now, that was in reference to Donald Trump. But Russ Vought also, he said, “I want to terrorize the federal bureaucrats.” So, some of these choices, the fork-in-the-road email of should you choose to basically resign or risk losing your job, I mean, the way these things were structured were deeply humiliating and devastating and financially devastating to hundreds of thousands of people, and that was an intentional choice by people like Russ Vought. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Parker encapsulates the Washington media establishment, which sees anyone who tries to reduce the size and role of government as driven by some sort of vicious delight in the misery of others. It can’t just be a simple policy disagreement. Conservatives must be discredited for having a nefarious agenda.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 29, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Poor Comey, target of ‘ruthless’ Trump (Washington Examiner post) It wasn’t even a year ago that liberal media were cheering the slew of politically driven prosecutions and court cases targeting President Donald Trump and his associates before he returned to the White House for his second term. But now that the tables have turned, most notably with last week’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress in a get-Trump case, the same media have declared those types of prosecutions the height of ruthlessness. Trump foe and New Yorker Editor David Remnick, for example, charged on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that Trump is in political payback mode and using prosecutions for revenge. “The first term was filled with impulses, and the second term is efficient, ruthless, and it’s happening every day. This movement toward authoritarianism is very distinct and needs to be taken seriously,” he charged, making him our featured Liberal Media Scream. David Remnick on Sunday’s Meet the Press: DAVID REMNICK: I think we should take the president at his word. It used to be in 2016 and Trump 1.0, I guess, that it was considered the height of wisdom that the press takes Trump literally and the people take him seriously, and then vice versa. I think it’s possible to do both at the same time. The president is telling us that he has an enemies list that he’s going to act on. He’s told us who is on the enemies list: John Bolton, Letitia James, Fani Willis ought to be on her guard, and many more, whether they’re in the press or civic society. I think this is a real emergency, and it should be taken seriously, and know that he’s going to act on it. It’s not just blather out on the White House lawn. That’s the difference between the first term and the second term. The first term was filled with impulses, and the second term is efficient, ruthless, and it’s happening every day. This movement toward authoritarianism is very distinct and needs to be taken seriously. This is not just a normal, you know, we talked about a budget battle. That’s normal politics. This is something extraordinary. Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst with the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, explained our pick: “This Obama sycophant once said that ‘the future of the Earth’ was contingent on the impeachment of Donald Trump. Now that the show is on the other foot, this is ‘extraordinary.’ If it weren’t for double standards in the media, there’d be none at all.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 22, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC calls Kirk memorial divisive, Trump vs. widow (Washington Examiner post) President Donald Trump is President Donald Trump, and many in the liberal media still can’t accept that. That was clear yesterday at the Arizona memorial for Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated this month, allegedly by a hate-filled leftist. After Kirk’s widow, Erika, forgave her husband’s killer, Trump, himself the target of two assassination attempts and years of political attacks, said he admired Kirk’s ability to forgive, but it’s something he could never do. It’s just not in his blood. “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them,” Trump said of Kirk. Then he added, “I hate my opponents.” For some at CNN and MSNBC, that was the big takeaway of the hourslong event as they searched for a way to portray it as divisive. “He has never made a pretense of being a leader for all Americans, as most of his predecessors have — even if they didn’t follow through,” said a CNN analysis. On MSNBC, following the memorial, White House correspondent Vaughn Hillyard also highlighted the different views and said, “I think what was stunning about the tension that exists here in 2025 was to listen to Erika Kirk, a big supporter of the president, be followed 15 to 20 minutes later by the president of the United States. Clearly, somebody who she loves, but come out and directly say, ‘I disagree with Charlie Kirk. I disagree with you, Erika,’ and say, ‘I hate my opponents.’” He added, “And I think that says a lot about where we are and the questions about where we go moving forward. The Erika Kirk route or the Donald Trump route.” Vaughn Hillyard on MSNBC’s The Weekend Primetime: VAUGHN HILLYARD: I think what, honestly, I’ll take away from tonight is watching the weight of a woman, a mother, lose her husband. Most people cannot say they’ve experienced losing a spouse at this young of an age, and I don’t know who we are to suggest how somebody should respond in real time. One week after her husband’s passing, she went in front of a crowd of 40 to 50,000 people, people watching all over the world. And she delivered remarks in which she forgave the assassin that shot her husband and killed him. Co-host Elise Jordan: I thought it was just remarkable. HILLYARD: A remarkable moment because in so many ways, where America stands in 2025 is: How do we respond going forward? And the woman that just lost her husband stood there in front of the world and said, ‘I forgive.’ And because her Christian faith teaches her to love your enemy and not hate your enemy, and to love those that persecute you. And I think what was stunning about the tension that exists here in 2025 was to listen to Erika Kirk, a big supporter of the president, be followed 15-20 minutes later by the president of the United States. Clearly, somebody who she loves, but come out and directly say, ‘I disagree with Charlie Kirk. I disagree with you, Erika,’ and say, ‘I hate my opponents.’ And I think that says a lot about where we are and the questions about where we go moving forward. The Erika Kirk route or the Donald Trump route. Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst with the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, explained our pick: “In the immediate aftermath of the powerful Charlie Kirk memorial, Trump-deranged MSNBC showed that they couldn’t leave well enough alone. What began as a complimentary reaction turned into Trump-deranged brainworms for MSNBC consumption. Erika Kirk’s testimony of forgiveness towards her husband’s murderer stands as a potent example of Christ-like behavior in a most difficult time. Forgive them for they know not what they do, indeed. But Hillyard couldn’t leave well enough alone, and he had to fabricate this oppositional friction where none exists between the Kirks and Trump. It’s almost as if they didn’t watch the memorial, and its many underlying messages centering around grace.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 15, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Martha Raddatz went 0-3 swinging for Trump hate (Washington Examiner post) In the fallout of the assassination of youthful Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, there has been the liberal media’s refusal to accept its role in dividing the nation, as it instead tries to blame President Donald Trump for the Left’s political violence. Martha Raddatz led the way while hosting ABC’s This Week on Sunday. She had one thing top of mind: get one or more of the three elected officials she had on as guests to denounce Trump for blaming the assassination of Charlie Kirk on “the radical Left.” First up, Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) was asked, “What’s your reaction to that? Is that something you think he should be doing?” Next was Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO), who was quizzed with, “Is that the message you believe he should be putting out?” And finally, Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) was pressed, “Is that the right thing to do? Or what do you wish he was saying?” Raddatz struck out, going 0-3, and is our pick for the weekly Liberal Media Scream. Three questions from Martha Raddatz on Sunday’s This Week on ABC: To Cox: “You immediately talked about Democrats who had been targeted. President Trump said nothing about the political violence against Democrats. In fact, he blamed ‘the radical Left.’ What’s your reaction to that? Is that something you think he should be doing?” To Polis: “You heard Gov. Cox. He did not, clearly did not want to criticize President Trump at this time, and Charlie Kirk was a good friend of President Trump and his family, but he has pointed the finger at what he calls ‘the radical Left.’ Is that the message you believe he should be putting out?” To Curtis: “A lot of people, certainly a lot of Republicans, a lot of people are listening to President Trump, and you’ve heard me talk about it earlier in the show. But several Republican lawmakers, prominent conservatives, including President Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric, as well as President Trump, have blamed this on ‘the radical Left.’ Is that the right thing to do? Or what do you wish he was saying?” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Martha Raddatz certainly seems to have had an agenda on Sunday: Get one or more of her guests to denounce President Trump for daring to blame ‘the radical Left’ for the assassination of Charlie Kirk. But isn’t that a reasonable supposition? Maybe a better area for her to have explored with her guests would have been why hasn’t there been more focus on that threat than the words used by a president who had just lost a friend to political violence?” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 8, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Clintonista Stephanopoulos desperate to condemn Trump (Washington Examiner post) For TV news liberals, one-upping competitors while venting their anti-Trump bias seems a requirement, especially for the big shots who host the weekly public affairs shows. Consider former Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos, who on Sunday was hosting ABC’s This Week for the first time since Aug. 3. Outdone on the Trump Derangement Syndrome spouted by the other hosts for weeks, notably CBS 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley’s regular editorial attacks on President Donald Trump, Stephanopoulos put on his serious face and listed all that was bad about the president’s week. It was, he said, “a week of challenges,” and he cited several examples that have, in the findings of several pollsters, helped revive Trump’s approval ratings. Stephanopoulos has been on the losing side of his fights with Trump for a while. Recall that in December, he and ABC News were ordered to apologize and pay $15 million in a Trump defamation lawsuit settlement. For his one-sided, off-base rant, Stephanopoulos wins our weekly Liberal Media Scream. Stephanopoulos at the top of ABC’s This Week on Sunday: “On Friday, President Trump rebranded the Department of Defense the ‘Department of War.’ Saturday, he announced the department’s first target, an American city. The President’s words: ‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.’ A chorus of criticism followed, including this from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D): ‘The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal.’ “And this chilling threat from President Trump comes after a week of challenges: Friday’s weak jobs report, on Capitol Hill a bipartisan grilling for [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], and a demand for transparency from Jeffrey Epstein’s victims; China’s display of diplomatic skill and military force and Russia’s rebuff of another Trump deadline on the war in Ukraine.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Stephanopoulos pops up every month or so to host This Week (he last hosted on Aug. 3) and seems bent each time on re-proving his anti-Trump bonafides. He did it again Sunday, framing in the worst possible light Trump’s efforts to save lives in Chicago and then proceeding to paint a world closing in on Trump — all in a week when Trump’s approval got an up bounce.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 1, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: ABC reporter fired for Trump hate doubles down (Washington Examiner post) A top political reporter dumped by ABC News for spewing hate toward President Donald Trump and deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller on X is doubling down on his rant. Instead of shushing after the embarrassing episode, Terry Moran stepped up his attack on Trump, telling a podcaster last week that Trump “is the man that we were warned about by the founders, that democracies fall when a man who can captivate the populace wants to exercise the power that’s there in the government.” What makes Moran our Liberal Media Scream of the week isn’t just his continued hate toward Trump but his embrace of the Founding Fathers, whom the liberal media have recently attacked as racist slave-holders not worthy of memorializing. Moran was dumped in June when he went after Miller on X. “He eats his hate,” Moran wrote of the president’s chief policy aide. “Trump is a world-class hater. … That’s his spiritual nourishment.” Moran on In Good Faith With Philip DeFranco: “What we’re seeing is, no question, what other countries have seen a lot, what our Founding Fathers predicted would happen, that a great strongman would, would, all right, not great in the good sense, but great in the power sense, right? “Trump is the most dominant figure of our age around the world. Don’t underestimate him. He is a world historical figure, and he is the man that we were warned about by the Founders, that democracies fall when a man who can captivate the populace wants to exercise the power that’s there in the government, and that is what we’re watching.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Legacy media figures keep reaching back in history to find different historic figures to use to condemn President Trump. The go-to has been Hitler, but now Moran is ridiculously invoking the Founding Fathers, a sudden respect for the supposed foresight of the founders, whom liberals normally condemn as immoral figures for condoning slavery, but now find so wise.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ August 25, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Velshi: MAGA is worse than Pearl Harbor, Civil War (Washington Examiner post) For this week’s Liberal Media Scream, we have an extraordinary Trump Derangement Syndrome rant that doesn’t just declare President Donald Trump a “strongman,” but more evil than Japan’s attack on America and more dangerous than the Civil War. It comes from weekend MSNBC host Ali Velshi, who on Sunday spat out a seven-minute-plus speech denouncing Trump and Republicans for the “collapse of democracy.” He claimed Trump has enacted a “police state” in cities while Republican “election security” efforts are really the “classic playbook of the strongman.” It was classic TDS and then he doused his fire with gasoline, charging, “America’s democracy has withstood civil war, depressions, attacks by foreign enemies on its soil, but it has never faced an assault on this scale: an internal demolition carried out not by outsiders or even by well-armed rebels, but by the holder of the highest office in the land.” Portions of Velshi from Sunday: It’s Sunday, August the 24th. I’m Ali Velshi, and we begin this hour with a reality check, a crucial one. The collapse of democracy is a strange, almost surreal thing. It can be abstract and hard to recognize in the moment. At first, it just feels like politics. It’s messy, it’s noisy, it’s frustrating, and sometimes a bit removed from one’s day-to-day life. But then the guardrails that we’ve taken for granted begin to topple one after another… At best, each assault may seem like an outlier until the day you wake up and realize the system itself has become unrecognizable. Well, that’s where we are right now. It’s not where we’re headed. It’s where we are. The tragedy of what’s unfolding and the danger of what’s ahead will be compounded if American citizens en masse, all of us, do not recognize this moment for what it is. Understandably, unless it touches you directly, it’s easy sometimes to miss what’s being taken away… This is not about public safety. It’s about flexing power, teaching dissenters and political opponents a lesson, normalizing the use of troops against Americans. In the nation’s capital, hundreds of federal troops now patrol the streets alongside [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and [Drug Enforcement Administration] and FBI agents, ticketing residents for minor offenses like broken taillights. Federal troops policing petty crime on America’s main street. Think about that. Crime may be statistically down, but intimidation is way up. The police state is here, and that’s the whole point. D.C. restaurants and bars report business down by one-third. What Trump is doing is designed to bleed blue cities dry economically… What Republicans label election security is the classic playbook of the strongman: tilt the playing field toward yourself and lock yourself into power. It doesn’t stop in Washington, D.C. Across the country, Republican controlled legislatures are dismantling the last avenues of direct democracy: Citizen ballot initiatives… The message is clear: Even if voters pass something that Republicans don’t like, Republicans in power will just rewrite the rules. This is not democracy. That is something called competitive authoritarianism. Elections in name. One-party rule in practice. And here lies the tragedy. Ultimate power in this country still belongs to the people. But every time we accept or tolerate one more red line being crossed, we normalize the next. Each violation larger than the last makes what came before feel almost normal. America’s democracy has withstood civil war, depressions, attacks by foreign enemies on its soil, but it has never faced an assault on this scale. An internal demolition carried out not by outsiders or even by well-armed rebels, but by the holder of the highest office in the land. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Ali Velshi is auditioning to win the role as the [Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA)] of the left-wing legacy media: The guy who most excites the anti-Trump world as the chief conveyor of Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ August 18, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CNN says Obama, Clinton, and Bush smarter than Trump (Washington Examiner post) CNN reached a new low in its anti-Trump bias, declaring that Russian President Vladimir Putin ate President Donald Trump’s lunch on Friday because Trump doesn’t have the “intellect” of former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Regular commentator Bakari Sellers on Sunday’s State of the Union overlooked that the political trio oversaw several wars, while Trump, in his second term, has ended a half-dozen wars and is today hosting a world summit at the White House to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Sellers was focused on Trump’s meeting in Alaska with Putin, an icebreaker on several fronts after former President Joe Biden let U.S.-Russian relations reach a Cold War low. “Donald Trump cannot perform on the world stage because he simply does not have the intellect to match up with these world leaders. He’s not Barack Obama, he’s not Hillary Clinton. He’s not even George Bush when it comes to being able to maneuver in these environments,” said Sellers. From CNN’s Sunday morning State of the Union hosted by Jake Tapper: BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think Vladimir Putin is a thug. I think he’s a war criminal. And I think he made Donald Trump look small. I mean, I understand the minutiae of where — I want a deal, like every other American wants a deal, or you should be praying for that deal. However, like I have said before many times, Donald Trump cannot perform on the world stage because he simply does not have the intellect to match up with these world leaders. He’s not Barack Obama, he’s not Hillary Clinton. He’s not even George Bush when it comes to being able to maneuver in these environments. And so what you saw was Vladimir Putin come and get what he wanted. I mean, the winner of this is Vladimir Putin. I don’t know why we’re trying to hide the ball. BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That’s what happened when he took Crimea. Obama gave him exactly what he wanted when he let Vladimir Putin have Crimea without so much as a shot or an objection. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “How vacuous can you be? When [former Sen.] Mitt Romney called Putin ‘the biggest political threat facing America,’ which has proven true, Obama ridiculed Romney: ‘The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.’ And as Todd pointed out, Obama didn’t do anything to counter Putin’s invasion of Crimea. Yet Obama is intellectually superior to Trump because Trump isn’t standing up enough to Putin? To say nothing of George W. Bush declaring he got ‘a sense’ of Putin’s ‘soul’ and found him ‘trustworthy’ or Hillary Clinton offering Putin a ‘reset’ button.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ August 11: No Liberal Media Scream this week    ■ August 4, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Washington Post reporter quit over patriotism request (Washington Examiner post) The generous buyout offer from Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has been too hard for a number of top reporters and editors to turn down. But for one columnist, leaving was coming no matter what. The reason: Bezos wanted “positive things happening in this country” to be covered “unapologetically patriotic.” For left-wing writer Jonathan Capehart, also a contributor to PBS and MSNBC, that was too much to ask. “There was just not going to be any room for a voice like mine,” he said on the NewsHour. For PBS, which lost taxpayer support in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act due to perceived anti-Trump bias, that was a tremendous decision by Capehart. Said NewsHour co-host Amna Nawaz, “Jonathan Capehart, we’re so glad your voice is heard right here at our table.” From Friday’s PBS NewsHour: AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, before we go, folks will have noticed that we introduced you slightly differently tonight than we usually do. We should point out, after nearly two decades at the Washington Post, you recently made the decision to leave. I just wanted to give you a chance to speak directly to our audience to tell them why. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, the direction of the opinion section changed. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, as is his right, decided that he wanted the section to focus on the twin pillars of personal liberties and free markets. And it became clear, as time went along, and especially when he chose a new leader for the section, that there was just not going to be any room for a voice like mine, especially when we were told that we would have to be unapologetically patriotic in talking about the positive things happening in the country. How can you talk about the positive things happening in the country when the rest of the house is engulfed in flames and the foundation is flooding? I wanted to go some place where my voice would be heard. NAWAZ: Jonathan Capehart, we’re so glad your voice is heard right here at our table. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Quite an admission that a leading PBS political analyst was so angry about the state of the country ‘engulfed in flames’ under President Trump that he’s opposed to expressing patriotism. But he fits right in on PBS and MSNBC and recognizes that’s ‘where my voice would be heard.’” Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.   ■ July 28, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Connie Chung wants Fox News anchors in ‘ankle monitors’ (Washington Examiner post) Connie Chung is back, and she’s still mouthing off about the conservative media she hates, making her our Liberal Media Scream of the week. What’s more, she’s giving advice to CBS, the network that dumped her in 1995 after a controversial interview and recently caved in to President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a manipulated 60 Minutes interview of former Vice President Kamala Harris.      Chung, who held several other media posts, went on CNN to rip the deal by Skydance Media to take over Paramount, the owner of CBS. She also hit media influencers and Fox News as providers of fake news. Of conservative media outlets, she said, “I think they should be putting ankle bracelets, ankle monitors on certain anchors at certain cable stations in prime time. Those are the culprits.” From Friday’s CNN News Central: Connie Chung: “I would say that they have to fight the good fight, that they have to protect the legacy of CBS. They cannot allow biased owners, because honestly, I don’t think CBS is necessarily the culprit. What needs to be policed is social media, which have no fact checkers, podcasters, and the like. No one is checking those facts. And the problem is, that is inaccurate information that’s being disseminated “I think they should be put in ankle bracelets, ankle monitors on certain anchors at certain cable stations in prime time. Those are the culprits.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “An unpleasant blast from the past. TV network stars like her of the 1980s and ‘90s, who so sanctimoniously saw themselves as paragons of virtue and facts, are what created the marketplace for Fox News and all the other new media outlets which so disturb her by not following the same liberal line as CBS. Yet, decades later, she still doesn’t recognize that.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ July 21, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CBS reporter blames PTSD on MAGA crowd at Trump shooting (Washington Examiner post) A CBS political reporter said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder following his coverage of the attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. But Scott MacFarlane didn’t blame shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, the noise of Crooks’s rifle going off eight times, or the near-death of Trump. He blamed the crowd of MAGA supporters, whom he envisioned “were going to come kill us.” He said he felt the crowd would blame the media for the shooting and that “we’d be dead” if Trump didn’t survive. For that, he easily won as our Liberal Media Scream of the week. But he was challenged during an interview on The Chuck ToddCast when Todd offered up his own bizarre reaction to the assassination attempt that killed Trump supporter Corey Comperatore. Todd said, “I share your concern. Just a little thing. I was — literally the first thing I was going to do after landing [in Milwaukee to cover the GOP convention] on Saturday was go to the Nats-Brewers game, and I said, ‘I’m not going. I’m not going to be seen going. I’m not, I’m not doing that. This is not the moment for this.'” Todd went on to say he has long feared Trump supporters.  From The Chuck ToddCast: SCOTT MACFARLANE: For those of us there, it was such a horror because you saw an emerging America. And it wasn’t the shooting, Chuck. This was … I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because, I think, of the shooting, but because, you could … you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people. They were coming for us. If he didn’t jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us. CHUCK TODD: I know … Look, I share your concern. Just a little thing. I was, literally, the first thing I was going to do after landing on Saturday was go to the Nats-Brewers game, and I said, “I’m not going. I’m not going to be seen going. I’m not, I’m not doing that. This is not the moment for this.” And I think we … none of us knew what the reaction of that Milwaukee crowd was going to be to this. Right? It turned into euphoria, right? It turned into this messiah, sort of messiah feeling. I think that, you know, that this was divine intervention. But I share that, that Saturday, and what you just described, being on the ground, was the first thing I thought of was my team down there. I think it was Vaughn Hillyard, if I’m not mistaken. MACFARLANE: Dasha was there as well. TODD: And Dasha Burns, right? And, look, let’s be honest. We’ve been fearing this for about a decade. That all of this heightened rhetoric, that what all this crap online, what happened on Jan. 6, those of us that experienced that as well, you’re like, we’re a tinderbox, right? You know what? There’s a fear that this moment is coming. And it’s interesting that you … the fact that we dodged that. You know, you’re right. I mean, it’s, it is … I don’t know what would have happened had the outcome been different. MACFARLANE: We are all … many of us on press row, as we talked about this on our text chains for weeks after, were quite confident we’d be dead if he didn’t get back up. There was a subset, not everybody, there’s dozens of people in the crowd who started coming for us, saying, “You did this. This is your fault. You caused this. You killed him.” And they’re going to beat us with their hands. I mean, they were going to kill us. And respectfully, the Secret Service had bigger issues than protecting us. When he jumped up triumphantly, it saved us, but that’s the thing. I can’t eliminate from my mind’s eye the look on their faces. They … that’s what America is right now. It’s not rational. It’s an irrational thought to think the media shot somebody from atop a building, but the lack of rationality is what connects Jan. 6 to this. It’s … how do we pull out of this as a country is the defining question of our time. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Yes, the near-assassination of President Donald Trump wasn’t the real ‘horror’ of the day. The real ‘horror’ was in how, in the few seconds before Trump triumphantly raised his fists, MacFarlane somehow sensed the crowd would ‘kill’ him and other reporters? Really? If Trump supporters were on the cusp of deadly violence, why are we just hearing about it a year later? And McFarlane really got diagnosed with PTSD? We all know too many journalists are snowflakes, but you’d think MacFarlane would have the self-respect to keep such an embarrassing admission, of his fear of fellow Americans, to himself.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ July 14, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Katie Couric labels Trump’s MAGA ‘a s*** show’ (Washington Examiner post) The disdain the legacy media have for President Donald Trump has reached new levels since Congress approved his “big, beautiful bill.” Many liberal outlets have resorted to following Democratic talking points and inflated the negative effects, and others have made ridiculous claims that it will kill millions. And then there is media darling Katie Couric, who just brushed aside the whole Trump administration in one profane and sour characterization, winning this week’s feature as our Liberal Media Scream. In calling for more media attention to the administration, the one-time Today show host fretted over “this moment in our history” and then hit “The s*** show that is the Trump administration.” In a joint video podcast with left-wing freelance journalist Liz Plank, Couric said “social media creators … depend on a lot of mainstream outlets” for basic information, so that “underscores the importance of more traditional media … especially at this moment in our history and what’s happening in our country and the s*** show that it is the Trump administration.” Couric, during a podcast cross-posted on Liz Plank’s Airplane Mode Substack podcast and the Next Question with Katie Couric podcast on Substack and YouTube: “I think it just, it underscores the importance of more traditional media, and I think we need it all, to be honest, especially at this moment in our history and what’s happening in our country and the s*** show that it is the Trump administration.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Couric demonstrates how ingrained the disdain is for Trump administration policies amongst the legacy media elite. It’s like muscle memory to them. And her blurting out her disgust, for a president who earned the most votes, in such a casual manner in a conversation with a like-minded liberal, shows how she sees it as a commonly-accepted view amongst her peers.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ July 7, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos blames downpour deaths on Trump (Washington Examiner post) The weekend saw some of the most embarrassing efforts by the liberal media to take President Donald Trump down, this time blaming him for the horrific flash flood deaths in Texas. The early morning flooding that has so far claimed the lives of more than 80, including children at a Christian girls camp, hit with little warning after a downpour dumped some 11 inches of rain that ended up in the Guadalupe River on Friday. Trump called it a 100-year event on Sunday and is planning to meet with families this Friday. Even as the search for survivors continued, the media tried to blame Trump and staff cuts at various federal weather agencies. Leading that effort was ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who said on This Week, “There were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Service offices in the region.” Most weather and state local officials have been quick to note that the area often floods and that notices were sent out after midnight. Blame isn’t what most wanted to cast, but the Washington media did anyway — something they didn’t do when Hurricane Helene crashed through the southwest last year, killing 230. Even the reporter on the scene in Texas, Mireya Villarreal, didn’t take the Trump-hating bait from Stephanopoulos, a one-time top aide to former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary. From ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: We’re also learning there were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Service offices in the region. MIREYA VILLARREAL, IN KERRVILLE, TEXAS: As of right now, the local county officials didn’t want to address that just yet. What they are telling us is they expected between 4 and 6 inches of rain. That is what weather experts told them. The National Weather Service as well. They also knew, in remote locations, they might get anywhere from 8 to 10 inches, but this amount of rain in such a short amount of time, it was very difficult to navigate. And when the Department of Homeland Security secretary was here just yesterday, she acknowledged this was an issue. She was going to take these concerns to the White House as well and try and see if there was anything they could do to revamp the system. She says the president is committed to it. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Liberal Democratic activists develop an attack line against the Trump administration, and Stephanopoulos dutifully jumps to repeat it. In this case, in the most distasteful way, trying to score political points at the very moment dozens of parents were desperately searching for their missing children. But with Stephanopoulos, it’s politics ahead of facts as his contention has been undermined by, amongst others, the union representing the NWS meteorologists.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ June 30, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS embraces socialist Mamdani, calls GOP criticism ‘hateful’ (Washington Examiner post) PBS is doubling down on its leftist bias that has drawn President Donald Trump’s support for defunding the taxpayer-supported service, this time embracing New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani while ripping GOP criticism of the self-declared socialist as “disgusting” and “hateful.” While some liberal politicians are disowning Mamdani for his extreme positions, the support by Public Broadcasting Service’s News Hour is this week’s featured Liberal Media Scream because it flies in the face of a promise to provide “intelligent, balanced” reporting. On Friday, News Hour didn’t feature the candidate’s left-wing promises to defund police and provide freebies to residents, but instead condemned the conservative reaction to him. Said featured liberal commentator Jonathan Capehart, “I’ll start with the Republican response. It’s shameful, it’s hateful, it’s disgusting.” From Friday’s PBS News Hour: NEWS HOUR HOST AMNA NAWAZ: I got to ask you both, too, about Tuesday night’s events in New York City, the Democratic mayoral primary contest the entire country was paying attention to when Zohran Mamdani, who was a little-known state assemblyman, went on to beat the former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani’s 33 years old, he’s a self-described Democratic socialist, and his win, we should point out, has really fueled a hateful response from some on the Right. There’s a major MAGA voice named Charlie Kirk, who posted this: ‘24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11. Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.’” Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles actually called for Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, as a naturalized U.S. citizen, to be denaturalized and deported. Jonathan, what does Mamdani’s win tell us about Democrats and their message, if anything, and what does the response tell us about Republicans and theirs? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, the response, I’ll start with the Republican response. It’s shameful, it’s hateful, it’s disgusting. It also tells me that Republicans are deathly afraid of their prospects in the 2026 midterm elections. Especially if they’re going after a guy who just simply won the primary in a municipal election. The other thing folks need to understand, the reputation of New York City is of a liberal bastion, and it’s a city where there’s a six-to-one Democratic registration advantage over Republicans. And yet this city, that has a reputation of being a liberal bastion, elected Rudy Giuliani twice and Mike Bloomberg three times, the first time as a Republican, the next two times as an independent. And so, what I take from Mamdani’s win, above all else, is that he went out there and asked New Yorkers for their votes. He did not do a Rose Garden strategy. He asked people for their votes, and he gave them something to vote for, and that’s the thing Democrats should emulate. Ask people for their votes. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “In pleading for donations in the wake of the effort to end taxpayer funding of PBS, the News Hour website ludicrously claims ‘your gift supports America’s #1 most trusted news source in providing intelligent, balanced and in-depth reporting.’ This coverage of Mamdani is just the latest proof of the hollowness of that promise, a pledge PBS has never made any genuine effort to provide. Where’s the balance in ignoring the elephant in the room of Mamdani’s extremist views while treating conservative reaction to him as the most important event that must be condemned?” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ June 23, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Feckless Margaret Brennan thinks she’s secretary of state (Washington Examiner post) If the Sunday performance of CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan were in a Looney Tunes cartoon, Bugs Bunny would have mocked, “da nerve!” Instead, and much better, Secretary of State Marco Rubio brushed aside her grade school “yes it is, no it’s not” debate over military intelligence and belief that she knows more about it than President Donald Trump’s top national security adviser. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rubio said in an appearance to discuss Trump’s decision to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities over the weekend. After Brennan continued to say she knows more about whether Iran planned to make nuclear weapons or not, Rubio gave his best “da nerve” look and told her, “That’s not how intelligence is read. That’s not how intelligence is used. Here’s what the whole world knows. Forget about intelligence, what the IAEA knows. They are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program.” From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me follow up on a phrase you just used — weaponization ambitions. Are you saying that the United States did not see intelligence that the supreme leader had ordered weaponization? SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: That’s irrelevant. I see that question being asked in the media all the time. That’s an irrelevant question. They have everything they need to build a weapon. BRENNAN: No, but that is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessments. You know that. RUBIO: No, it’s not. BRENNAN: Yes, it was. RUBIO: No, it’s not. BRENNAN: That the political decision had not been made. RUBIO: No, I know — well, I know that better than you know that. And I know that that’s not the case. BRENNAN: But I’m asking you whether the order was given. RUBIO: You don’t know what you’re talking about. And the people who say that — it doesn’t matter if the order was given. They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury — why would you bury things in a mountain 300 feet under the ground? BRENNAN: Right. RUBIO: Why would you bury six … why do they have 60% enriched uranium? You don’t need 60% enriched uranium. The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60% are countries that have nuclear weapons, because they can quickly make it 90. They have all the elements. They have … why are they … why do they have a space program? Is Iran going to go to the moon? No. They’re trying to build an ICBM, so they can one day put a warhead on it. BRENNAN: No, but that’s a question … that’s a question … that’s a question of intent. And you know, in the intelligence assessment, that it was that Iran wanted to be a threshold state and use this leverage. RUBIO: How do you know what the intelligence assessment says? How do you know what the intelligence assessment says? BRENNAN: I’m talking about the public March assessment. And that’s why I was asking you if you know something more from March, if an order was given. RUBIO: Well, that — but that’s also an inaccurate representation of it. That’s an inaccurate representation of it. That’s not how intelligence is read. That’s not how intelligence is used. Here’s what the whole world knows. Forget about intelligence, what the IAEA knows. They are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Refreshing to see a guest take on the liberal premises forwarded as facts by legacy media hosts. This wasn’t the first time this year that Brennan has been schooled by a Trump administration official. Maybe she should consider being more of a dispassionate interviewer and less of an advocate for the left-wing spin of the day.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.   ■ June 16, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS sees Trump ‘suspending elections’ (Washington Examiner post) It’s hard to imagine that PBS could get any more anti-Trump, but after House Republicans voted to endorse President Donald Trump’s bid to defund public broadcasting, all of its “Trump derangement syndrome” sirens have gone off. For our weekly Liberal Media Scream, we feature its most extreme claim from lefty News Hour commentator Jonathan Capehart that the president is on a power grab that will have him “suspending elections.” On Friday’s PBS News Hour, Capehart suggested that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to California to protect federal buildings against anti-ICE demonstrators, as well as “rumors” of a pardon for the police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd, is part of a plan to “create the conditions that would allow the president to invoke the Insurrection Act.” Tying the Army birthday parade Saturday with the deployment of troops to Los Angeles, Capehart said, “We are at a turning point, I think, this weekend with what we have seen in the run-up to tomorrow’s parade, with what’s happening in Los Angeles. More people’s hair should be on fire, not just because of the National Guard troops in Los Angeles without the — working with or permission from the governor, which is by law what should have been done, but the calling up of Marines, U.S. military, on American streets.” “That is a line that, to me, anyway, is one that should never have been crossed. And the president putting out this order and putting out this order that isn’t specific to Los Angeles, isn’t specific to any city. It’s so broad. The language is so broad that it’s sort of like you could just tuck it into like a giant L.L. Bean tote bag, and you just pull out: Where do I need to send troops?” Jonathan Capehart on Friday’s PBS News Hour: I think they’re creating the political conflict because, you know, I interviewed Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison in the run-up to the anniversary, the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. And he brought up on his own the rumor that the president was going to pardon Derek Chauvin. And the attorney general said that the president might do that as a distraction to larger goals. And one of the larger goals that the attorney general mentioned that has always been in the back of my mind is to create the conditions that would allow the president to invoke the Insurrection Act. And once the president invokes the Insurrection Act, all sorts of powers are handed to the president, you know, suspending elections, and other things once you open that box, and particularly you open that box with this president and the administration and the yes-people he has around him, there’s no going back. That is among the reasons why I am so concerned about what we’re about to see tomorrow. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Tinfoil hat time. And PBS supporters act befuddled as to why conservatives see PBS as the home of left-wing crazy talk, leading the House last week to approve President Trump’s rescission package to end taxpayer funding of PBS and NPR. Capehart’s wild speculation passes for informed analysis on PBS’s top ‘news’ program.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ June 9, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Pompous Pelley warns America ‘is doomed’ (Washington Examiner post) Just when we thought CBS’s Scott Pelley couldn’t get any more pompous, he proved us wrong — again. This time it was in decrying America under President Donald Trump, declaring that only journalism can save the nation, and warning that “If you fall silent, the country is doomed.” Seeing parallels between Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the 1950s and Trump today, while speaking after CNN showed George Clooney’s play about legendary newsman Edward R. Morrow, Pelley said, “You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can’t be done.” Pelley has used his 60 Minutes perch to air his liberal bias and editorialize against Trump. Murrow played an outsize role in ending McCarthy’s career. From CNN’s special coverage Saturday night, Good Night, and Good Luck Live: Truth and Power, after the live airing from Broadway of the stage play, Good Night, and Good Luck: ANDERSON COOPER: Do you still believe in journalism? Do you still believe in the role of journalists? SCOTT PELLEY: It is the only thing that’s going to save the country. You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can’t be done. The people at home need reliable, consistent information in order to make decisions about their lives and their futures, and the country’s future. So, there is no system of democracy without journalism. We have to figure out how to keep journalism free, independent, accurate, and responsible for what it’s doing. But journalism is the only profession that is protected by the Constitution of the United States. And there’s a reason for that. James Madison believed that freedom of speech was the right that guaranteed all the other rights in the Bill of Rights. And so it is today. COOPER: What is your message to people about, who have just watched this, and are worried? PELLEY: It’s going to take courage, as it often has, to get through this period of American history. Our forebears were called by their times to have courage to move the country forward. And so it is with us today. The most important thing is to have the courage to speak, to not let fear permeate the country so that everyone suddenly becomes silent. If you have the courage to speak, we are saved. If you fall silent, the country is doomed. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Could Pelley be any more pompous? If he, CBS News, and the rest of the legacy media had ever lived up to his promise of providing ‘independent, accurate and responsible’ news, they wouldn’t be held in such disdain by so much of the public who see them as left-wing political players. And that’s a reality he confirmed by advocating everyone get in line and join him in having the ‘courage’ to oppose the policies of the man who earned the most votes in the last election.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ June 2, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos tries to top Pelley with his Trump hate (Washington Examiner post) Have you noticed how the liberal Sunday news show hosts have been tripping over themselves to find some, any angle to attack President Donald Trump and his team? The latest to join the parade is George Stephanopoulos, the ABC big shot and former Bill Clinton spinner-in-chief, who on Sunday tried to one-up the recent string of anti-Trump editorials from Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes. On ABC’s This Week, Stephanopoulos opened with this: “Good morning and welcome to This Week. The scale is staggering. President Trump and his family are making hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars, as Trump and his administration take official actions that benefit contributors and investors.” The attack was par for the course for the Clinton family defender, who was unfazed that the Clinton Foundation profited from foreign governments when Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state or that the Biden family enterprise cashed in on Joe Biden’s vice presidency and presidency. And it followed a pattern of attacking Trump at any cost, a dangerous practice that recently prompted ABC and Stephanopoulos to issue an apology and pay a Trump-related foundation $15 million to scuttle a defamation lawsuit. For his hypocrisy, Stephanopoulos’s rant is our Liberal Media Scream of the week. Stephanopoulos on Sunday’s This Week on ABC, with the quoted text displayed on screen: “Good morning and welcome to This Week. The scale is staggering. President Trump and his family are making hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars, as Trump and his administration take official actions that benefit contributors and investors. Just this week, we learned of pardons to tax cheats, including a man whose pardon was granted weeks after his mother attended a million-dollar-a-head fundraiser with the president. The Trump Media and Technology Group raised nearly $2.5 billion from 50 institutional investors whose identities have not been disclosed. The SEC dropped its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency firm Binance days after Binance began listing the cryptocurrency launched by World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm started by Trump’s family. “This unprecedented money-making by a sitting president and his family summarized by critics like the Atlantic’s David Frum. ‘Nothing like this has been attempted or even imagined in the history of the American presidency,’ he writes. ‘Throw away the history books, discard feeble comparisons to scandals of the past. There is no analogy with any previous action by any past president. The brazenness of the self-enrichment resembles nothing seen in any earlier White House. This is American corruption on the scale of a post-Soviet republic or a post-colonial African dictatorship.’” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: You’d think someone like Stephanopoulos, who forced Disney/ABC to pay $15 million to Trump’s future presidential museum for a false statement impugning President Trump, would be more reluctant to display such rank hypocrisy in becoming so overwrought about charges of corruption against Trump. Especially when he showed no similar concern over how the Biden family profited off of lucrative secretive deals fueled by President Biden’s high offices.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ May 27, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC calls Trump ‘dictator’ to bow before (Washington Examiner post) As if MSNBC can’t get any more ridiculous, a regular guest proved it could when previewing President Donald Trump‘s solemn Memorial Day events by calling him a dictator whom all must bow before. In comments condemning more than half of the voters who support Trump, Dean Obeidallah, host of The Dean Obeidallah Show on SiriusXM, told the MSNBC audience, “This really is a push and pull between two competing visions of America. One that we believe in is freedom, the United States of America with due process, and their vision, which is an autocracy, and that really — what we’re dealing with, or easier than that, a dictatorship. They want Trump as the dictator of the United States, and we all have to bow down to him.” Obeidallah’s rant won this week’s Mainstream Media Scream, but it was a close call, with hard-left CBS 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley and his liberal colleague, Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, in full Trump derangement syndrome. Pelley made headlines for his over-the-top Trump hate commencement at Wake Forest, and Brennan for her uneducated attack on the House Republican “big, beautiful bill.” Dean Obeidallah, during the noon hour on Saturday of Velshi on MSNBC: I think the fact that it’s Memorial Day weekend gives us a moment to pause. People made the ultimate sacrifice. They did it for something that you mentioned in your — in your monologue there. And that word is “freedom.” And I’m writing an article right now. I was looking back at the very first speech in the modern day Memorial Day, which was Rep. James Garfield before he was president, 1868 Arlington, to Joe Biden’s. I looked at all different presidential speeches and the one word that came up in all those speeches: “freedom.” And that’s what people — that’s what makes us Americans. And Donald Trump is going after everything, freedom of speech, in ways we’ve never seen. I mean, a judge just ruled on Friday protecting the law firms, saying you’re going after dissent, going after universities. I had professor Steven Levitsky on my show, co-author of How Democracies Die, saying every autocrat goes after universities because they are independent centers of dissent. People think he’s going after media outlets. He’s going after Democrats. They’re arresting judges. The mayor of Newark, they dropped the charges. They had no case. Then a Democratic member of Congress, they opened up investigations into ActBlue because it’s a platform to help Democrats raise money. Now, an investigation into Media Matters, Angelo Carusone’s, the FTC is beginning an investigation. This is a reenvisio

The Islamic Center of Mason has a charter school that requires students to memorize the Koran, and its organizers have plans for a large expansion for a mosque.A WCPO-TV report included interviews from a student and a mother who co-founded the Learning Center in Ohio as well as an imam from the mosque next door to the school. 'The hardest part is actually retaining what you memorized.'"I did not want to do it at all," said Aadam Zindani."Memorizing it is the easy part," he added. "The hardest part is actually retaining what you memorized."Zindani said that memorizing the 600 pages took him about three years."It takes years. For some people, it takes decades," said imam Fawzan Hansbhai. Aadam's mother, Anila Zindani, told WCPO that she helped found the school in Mason because she couldn't find a place in the area to help teach her son the Koran. She began memorizing the Koran in a trailer in downtown Mason.The learning center's website says the school has classes from kindergarten to the second grade and that it is a non-public charter school. The center is affiliated with the Department of Education with the state of Ohio."The best among you are those who learn the Qu'ran and teach it," the website reads.The school organizers are also raising money to build a community center that includes a $12 million mosque, a prayer hall, and classrooms for the learning center."It was a huge dream," said Anila Zindani of the school. "And when I see those students, and when I see those teachers, it’s like a dream come true."RELATED: Florida teen murdered 13-year-old for mocking Islam — family is suing the grocery store that sold him the knife The school's website says it has 38 students for the current season."Save yourself before it's too late," read a post from the learning center on its official social media account. It added a verse from the Koran: "Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should speak good or remain silent."Video of WCPO's visit to the Islamic Center was disabled to play on other websites by the owner, but it can be viewed on the station's channel on YouTube.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!