On Sunday night, the Senate made the first steps toward ending the Schumer Shutdown, and the Keith Olbermanns of the world were fulminating away. Suddenly, the networks admitted it was the Democrats who had been holding out and shutting down things. NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck and Senior Research Analyst Bill D'Agostino joined the show for the breakdown.  Bill found in October, the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) hammered both Congressional Republicans and President Trump with a wall of negative shutdown coverage, while largely shielding Democrats from blame for the now-historic gridlock. Across the 67 reports and news briefs which discussed the government shutdown on the evening news shows in October, 87 percent of the coverage favored Democrats.  Curtis conducted an analysis of five leading liberal Capitol Hill reporters on X and found by a margin of roughly two-and-a-half-to-one (72 to 28), they tweeted more times since the start of the government shutdown to condemn Speaker Mike Johnson and the House for being out of session than they highlighted crucial government programs like food stamps and pay for soldiers that have been affected by the Democrat-created crisis. The Sunday shows had some highlights. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was being pushed around on the Schumer Shutdown by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, the former Clinton press secretary. Bessent said Team Clinton called the Republicans “terrorists” in the budget battles: “I went back and read your book. So, you got one purchase on Amazon this week. And that's very much what you said.” Stephanopoulos claimed it was a “mischaracterization of history.” No. It wasn’t. In an interview with PBS in 2000, George explained “Our strategy was very simple. We couldn't buckle, and we had to say that they were blackmailing the country to get their way….And we were trying to say that they were basically terrorists, and it worked.” In January of 1995, NBC’s Bryant Gumbel noted to Rep. Dick Gephardt that he’d described “Gingrich and his ilk” as “trickle-down terrorists who base their agenda on division, exclusion, and fear.” He asked if middle-class Americans “need protection” from them.  We also discuss the scandal at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) over fraudulent editing of Donald Trump's speech to supporters on January 6, 2021 -- not to mention the BBC's horribly pro-Hamas coverage of the war in Gaza.  Enjoy the podcast below, or listen to the audio here. 

For years, Americans have been told a comforting lie: Anyone can do anything, be anything, and succeed at anything, regardless of limits or differences. But ideological fantasies collapse on the battlefield, where physics, endurance, and human limits matter more than slogans.After years of social experimentation, the military is rediscovering a basic truth: Equality of opportunity makes the force stronger, while equality of outcome weakens it. The return to gender-neutral standards announced last month by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth marks a long-overdue step toward restoring merit, discipline, and respect across the ranks.Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.For most of our history, the armed forces held one clear principle: Anyone, male or female, could serve in any position if they met the same standard. The promise was simple and fair — the uniform didn’t care about sex or gender, only performance.That began to change in 2015, when the Army opened all-male combat units to women. At the time, the Pentagon promised no dilution of standards. But in 2018, when the new gender-neutral Army Combat Fitness Test was introduced, 84% of female soldiers failed. Instead of maintaining expectations, the Army rewrote them.By 2022, the ACFT 4.0 came with gender-based scoring — a quiet admission that standards had become negotiable. The result: Combat units staffed with soldiers unable to meet the physical requirements of their jobs. That puts missions, morale, and lives at risk.Worse, it undermines respect for women who do meet the standard. When the bar moves, doubt replaces trust. Hardworking female soldiers — the ones who earned their places — are forced to prove themselves twice: once in training and again in the eyes of their peers.Diversity by design, weakness by consequenceIn 2021, U.S. Special Operations Command declared that “diversity is an operational imperative.” But this new “imperative” wasn’t about the real diversity already found across the military — people from every background, race, and income level serving side by side. It was about engineering statistical parity, even in elite combat units where performance alone must decide who stays and who goes.That mindset has consequences. Combat units can’t afford ideological experiments. The job is to close with and destroy the enemy — not to serve as laboratories for social theory. Lowering standards in the name of inclusion doesn’t just weaken readiness; it puts soldiers in unnecessary danger.And no woman who trains to fight wants pity disguised as progress. The women who seek out elite units don’t ask for special treatment — they ask for the same chance to prove themselves by the same rules. When standards drop, those women lose too.Strength in truthGender-neutral standards don’t discriminate. They recognize that men and women are different and that most people — men included — simply can’t meet the demands of combat. That’s not “oppression.” It’s just reality.Women who pass those standards have demonstrated extraordinary strength, skill, and resolve. They deserve admiration, not suspicion. And those who don’t — along with the vast majority of men who don’t — can still serve honorably in the hundreds of vital roles that keep America’s military functioning.RELATED: How America lost its warrior spirit when it feminized its academies Photo by Kevin CarterA sex-neutral standard is an act of fairness, not exclusion. It’s a recognition that excellence demands truth, not ideology — that merit, not identity, keeps soldiers alive and wins wars.Restoring purposeThe military’s duty is national defense, not social engineering. Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.Reaffirming one standard for all isn’t an attack on women — it’s a defense of every soldier’s dignity. It calls each person to rise to the challenge, to serve according to one’s God-given abilities, and to be judged by results.If we want a stronger force — and a stronger nation — we must stop confusing fairness with fantasy. Let’s demand standards worthy of the uniform, and let every soldier, male or female, earn respect the same way: by meeting them.

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