PBS News Hour’s “Art in Action” is an occasional series dedicated to “exploring the intersection of art and democracy” as part of the paper’s larger arts coverage. It’s aired some three dozen segments since the first one in August 2024, late in the Biden Administration, then quickly pivoted to an anti-Trump ideological stance after Trump’s election. It's a convenient vehicle to sneak in even more left-wing talking points under the guise of arts coverage. The latest example appeared Tuesday evening, with arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown palling around with artistic anti-ICE activists in Chicago, openly discussing defying federal immigration enforcement. Co-anchor Geoff Bennett: The Trump administration's nationwide immigration crackdown has ignited protests from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. It has also galvanized grassroots artists and community organization. Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports from Chicago....Artists have been at the center of the movement, using their skills and resources as part of organized dissent.... Jeffrey Brown: At first glance, a normal craft night at a neighborhood arts center. But as volunteers fold printed pamphlets called zines, they're really participating in a grassroots political protest. Teresa Magana, Pilsen Arts and Community House: With everything that's been going on since the summer with immigration and ICE presence, we started a whistle community alert campaign. And so people come in on Mondays and Tuesdays to help pack whistles and zines. Brown: Teresa Magana is an artist and co-founder of the Pilsen Arts and Community House in Chicago. It hosts art exhibitions, teaches classes for kids, and offers a free space for artists to work. It's in the heart of the heavily Latino Pilsen neighborhood, which has been one target area amid the Trump administration's citywide immigration raids. The zines and whistles instruct volunteers how to signal to residents when ICE is in the neighborhood. Brown took pride in another artist who produces silk-screened bandanas “that so-called rapid response groups use to identify each other when they watch for immigration agents in their neighborhoods.” Even “traditional arts institutions” are getting into the riot act. Brown talked to Jose Ochoa, president of the National Museum of Mexican Art, who was also actively gumming up federal immigration enforcement. Jose Ochoa: The rules of the game kept changing, and so here at the museum we have had to keep moving along. And so, back then, in the summer, I was learning how to identify the warrants. What's an administrative warrant versus a judicial warrant? PBS isn't alone on this. NPR used that National Museum of Mexican Art as the setting for its softball interview with Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill.) NPR also celebrated anti-ICE knitters.  The series consistently smuggles liberal (and only liberal) political propaganda into its segments. In April 2025, Brown celebrated the artistic freedom of liberal political cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who resigned in a huff from the Washington Post when a cartoon mocking Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was rejected. PBS showed some of Telnaes's latest work, including President Trump conducting at the Kennedy Center with a swastika-tipped baton. In October 2025, the show’s artsy self-regard was off the charts. The producers surely felt blessed they were able to work into a segment Bruce Springsteen’s surprise appearance at a New York film festival the night before, in which he called the Trump administration “treasonous.” In an August 2025 segment, leftist historian Peniel Joseph jumped on a social media post by President Trump claiming the Smithsonian Institution had gone overboard dwelling on American slavery. Thou shall not question taxpayer-funded museum wokery! Co-anchor Amna Nawaz set up Joseph, and the leftist delivered the culminating cliche: Trump is ushering in a new McCarthyism for not giving left-wing professors the final say in how taxpayer money for the arts is used. Peniel Joseph: ….This is reminiscent of the age of McCarthyism, the age of the Cold War years, where speech was suppressed. Folks who were cultural producers in Hollywood and academics lost their jobs, but average people lost their jobs too for speaking out for social justice…. A transcript is available, click "Expand." PBS News Hour 3/17/26 7:40:03 p.m. (ET) GEOFF BENNETT: The Trump administration`s nationwide immigration crackdown has ignited protests from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. It has also galvanized grassroots artists and community organization. Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports from Chicago, where shootings involving federal immigration agents and President Trump`s threats to send in the National Guard led to citywide protests. Artists have been at the center of the movement, using their skills and resources as part of organized dissent. This report is part of our Art in Action series, exploring the intersection of art and democracy and our Canvas arts coverage. JEFFREY BROWN: At first glance, a normal craft night at a neighborhood arts center. But as volunteers fold printed pamphlets called zines, they`re really participating in a grassroots political protest. TERESA MAGANA, Pilsen Arts and Community House: With everything that`s been going on since the summer with immigration and ICE presence, we started a whistle community alert campaign. And so people come in on Mondays and Tuesdays to help pack whistles and zines. JEFFREY BROWN: Teresa Magana is an artist and co-founder of the Pilsen Arts and Community House in Chicago. It hosts art exhibitions, teaches classes for kids, and offers a free space for artists to work. It`s in the heart of the heavily Latino Pilsen neighborhood, which has been one target area amid the Trump administration`s citywide immigration raids. The zines and whistles instruct volunteers how to signal to residents when ICE is in the neighborhood. (WHISTLES BLOWING) JEFFREY BROWN: Magana was inspired after seeing protests in Los Angeles this past summer. TERESA MAGANA: It came very natural, I think, for us to say, hey, this is something we know we have capacity to do. We`re artists. We know how to make zines. We know how to make a design. JEFFREY BROWN: Why through this place? Why was that your response? TERESA MAGANA: We are a community space focused on arts, but we also are very much part of an activist community. Pilsen in Chicago is historically known for that through the arts and through our voices. JEFFREY BROWN: The history of that activism is written quite literally on the walls of the Pilsen neighborhood. Political murals here go back decades, protesting gentrification, American military intervention, and more recently the presence of federal immigration agents in the city. Local printmaker Atlan Arceo-Witzl has turned his focus to helping. And printmaking is an art form that enables him to get his work out quickly. ATLAN ARCEO-WITZL, Artist: Now we have all this water-based media that drives really fast. It`s something you can kind of push out to your networks of support, whether that be for a demonstration in the streets or for pasting up outside or stapling to a telephone pole. JEFFREY BROWN: From a graphic image perspective, what do you need to make it work? ATLAN ARCEO-WITZL: Having a balance between the words and the image is key, because sometimes the image is the thing that holds you after you`re able to read the text. JEFFREY BROWN: Making sure those images reach people in the real world presents another challenge. MELITA MORALES, Art Professor: I think there is a tendency for people to think about the arts as something that doesn`t happen in our everyday life. JEFFREY BROWN: Art Professor Melita Morales is part of a collective that supports immigrant families impacted by federal raids. She organizes events where the group makes banners together, using art to get out their message and to build community. MELITA MORALES: My role as an artist is to create opportunities for people to come together and work side by side and ask each other questions about who they are and how they got to Chicago and their lives as we sit and work with each other. JEFFREY BROWN: Morales also silk-screens bandanas that so-called rapid response groups use to identify each other when they watch for immigration agents in their neighborhoods. MELITA MORALES: I think a lot of times artists are processing the world around them and they express that through their use of color, form and shape. And when they`re brought to view in a public world, then they become meanings that are expressed and negotiated by all those who view them. JOSE OCHOA, President, National Museum of Mexican Art: This becomes more of an everyday image, doesn`t it? You have seen this in different ways in our news. JEFFREY BROWN: The scenes of the immigration crackdown in the streets and the protests against it are also impacting how traditional arts institutions think, says Jose Ochoa, president of the National Museum of Mexican Art. His wakeup call came after Department of Homeland Security officials showed up at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture last summer. JOSE OCHOA: We needed to know how to engage if ICE were to come to the door. What do we tell our people? What happens to our guests, employees? What if we have school groups? Like, what do we do? JEFFREY BROWN: So he organized an event with cultural institutions across the city. JOSE OCHOA: The rules of the game kept changing, and so here at the museum we have had to keep moving along. And so, back then, in the summer, I was learning how to identify the warrants. What`s an administrative warrant versus a judicial warrant? JEFFREY BROWN: These are not the kind of concerns you thought you would have as a head of a museum. JOSE OCHOA: No, not really. Am I completely surprised? No. In communities of color and in disenfranchised communities, we`re always waiting for the shoe to drop. And it`s always going to drop on us first. JEFFREY BROWN: The museum is also saving pieces of community protest art, its It`s traditional work of collecting art now very much in the moment. Prominent artists in Chicago`s hip-hop community, including Vic Mensa and Chance The Rapper, have also been using their voices to respond to what they`re seeing. FEMDOT, Rapper: We`re seeing videos of things, people getting pushed out of buildings and out of cars and things of that sort. And it`s like you can`t unsee it. JEFFREY BROWN: We met 30-year-old Femdot, a Chicago native born to Nigerian immigrant parents who`s active in the community as musician and head of an education and civic engagement nonprofit. FEMDOT: I`m a child of immigrants. so, like, it`s extremely personal. It could be me. JEFFREY BROWN: So how does that impact you as an artist, as a musician? FEMDOT: Having a platform, whether that is just the music itself or what I have -- the platform I have built based off the music, it`s like, OK, I have to be able to speak to this in some capacity, simply just tapping into my community what`s happening, what`s going on, how can I be of service, how can I amplify things, and also create safe places for community to develop Because, also, people also experiencing joy and also having community is equally as radical. JEFFREY BROWN: Back at the Pilsen Arts and Community House, Teresa Magana says she sees her work as part of a wider movement. TERESA MAGANA: Everybody that has stepped in here, they have taken it back home to their family, their friends, to local businesses. It`s just a way to spread the pollen, you know? JEFFREY BROWN: In the form of whistles and zines, with orders for more coming in nationwide. For the "PBS News Hour," I`m Jeffrey Brown in Chicago.  

Sunday's Oscars telecast on ABC declined in the ratings again as the comedians -- both host Conan O'Brien and presenter Jimmy Kimmel -- drowned the event in a series of ridiculous anti-Trump jokes and comments. Christian Toto of HollywoodInToto.com and MRC Video content creator Nick Kangadis take on the current state of Hollywood. O’Brien sounded juvenile with his Trump Kennedy Center joke: “We’re coming to you live from the Has a Small Penis Theater. Let’s see him put his name in front of that!”  “As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which,” Kimmel said before announcing the nominees for best documentary short film. “Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS.” The winner for Best Documentary argued you can lose your country to tyranny "through countless small little acts of complicity. When we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities. When we don’t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we can produce it and consume it. Spanish actor Javier Bardem felt compelled to drop a slogan: "Free Palestine!" Ratings for the Oscars broadcast sunk below 18 million viewers, when it used to draw 50 or 60 million. Movie stars love to have a “platform” to launch their leftist attacks, but the platform is shrinking, as half the country tunes out. The drop was the first decline in audience in five years. The big winners of the evening were the black-themed vampire movie Sinners and the leftist-boosting One Battle After Another. In a break with recent Oscars history, both movies performed well at the box office. Often, the nominees are movies that most of the Oscars audience hasn't seen yet.  Enjoy the discussion below. Or the audio version is here.   

At the height of the energy crisis in the 1970s, when oil prices more than sextupled, The Economist magazine showed a map of the Persian Gulf on its cover with the headline, “What’s a Nice Thing Like Oil Doing in a Place Like This?” The Iranian miscreants, with whom we are now at war, understand that, although they could care less what their own citizens think, in free countries public opinion and support is vital to a president’s ability to wage war. By impeding the movement of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil supplies pass, they know they can hit the American people at the gas pump and start them screaming for President Donald Trump to pull out of the war. I felt it the other day when I shelled out $150 to fill my tank. For sure I wasn’t happy. But for the many who are out of sorts because of high gas prices, know that if it brings you to sta rt calling for Trump to pull out of the war, you are following to the letter the script written by the terrorists in Tehran. One thing that characterizes times like this is the tendency for governments to not do what they should do and to do what they shouldn’t do. Weak leaders govern by poll, not by principle. Their finger is always to the wind trying to determine what will make voters happy tomorrow. They seek ways that government can “ease the pain.” In that energy crisis of the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter launched a major government assault on energy markets. Price controls. Government programs to incentivize use of alternative energy sources. He created the Department of Energy. It all just made things worse. Carter then was voted out, and Ronald Reagan was voted in. Reagan immediately removed government interventions and the price of oil plummeted by almost a factor of six. So, on the domestic front, government, rather than looking for political fixes to “ease the pain,” should be keeping consumers in touch with reality by keeping markets as open and free as possible so the right adjustments in supply and demand can take place. On the side of what government should be doing, and often doesn’t do, is actively protecting our national security on all fronts. The pursuit by the Iranian terrorist regime of nuclear weapons goes back as far as 2002, reports The Wall Street Journal. This is one year after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Those 9/11 attacks were planned during the Clinton presidency while he was looking the other way. Those who piloted the planes into the World Trade Center learned to fly in flight schools in our country. Under Bill Clinton’s presidency, defense spending as a percent of GDP, dropped from 6.1% to 3.8%. Clinton then turned the reins of government over to George W. Bush and shortly thereafter the 9/11 attack occurred. The Wall Street Journal documents ongoing Iranian activity to enrich uranium and develop weapons since 2002, despite the delusionary efforts of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden to do a deal with them. With the easing of sanctions under Obama and Biden, the Iranian rulers had again access to hundreds of billions to once again fund terrorism. One result was the horrific attack by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Meanwhile, we’ve had four attacks over recent weeks -- in Michigan, Virginia, New York and Texas -- by homegrown terrorists with Middle Eastern ties, while the Department of Homeland Security remains closed and unfunded. This is insane. Do we really need to wait for another 9/11? Let’s keep our country strong by keeping markets at home open and free and by being vigilant toward fanatics abroad, with money and power, who want to kill us. Regarding short term inconveniences and unpleasantness, best to remember that freedom is not free. Star Parker is founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Her recent book, “What Is the CURE for America?” is available now.

On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, ABC and NBC used their flagship newscasts to paint Homeland Security Secretary nominee — current Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) — as a hot bed of controversy who faced a “heated” and “tense” hearing over his “anger issues” and Republican opposition from Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). The networks even admitted they were making a mountain out of a mole hill by conceding he was on track for confirmation despite all these hoopla. Unsurprisingly, ABC led the way with the buffoonery. Wednesday’s World News Tonight included this tease from anchor David Muir: “Also tonight, the heated moments during the Senate confirmation hearing for the President’s pick to replace Kristi Noem to run Homeland Security. The fiery moments right here as Senator Markwayne Mullin is questioned by lawmakers on both sides.” Muir later doubled down on the “heated moments” line and boasted Mullin was “questioned about potential anger issues and about what he said about that ICU nurse killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.” ABC's 'World News Tonight' giddily promotes DHS secretary nominee @MarkwayneMullin having serious "anger issues" pic.twitter.com/3BVXVa19dH — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 18, 2026 Capitol Hill correspondent Jay O’Brien relayed from D.C. the recap of “the surprisingly personal confrontation” with “Paul accusing...Mullin of having serious anger issues” in relation to comments Mullin made after Pul was the victim of “assault by a neighbor in 2017.” “Paul then playing a video of the time Mullin, a former MMA fighter, tried to fight a union leader in the middle of a Senate hearing,” O’Brien added, only conceding after the entire back-and-forth that the man in question — Sean O’Brien of the Teamsters — was sitting directly over Mullin’s shoulder to support his now-friend. Following a soundbite about Mullin expressing regret for passing judgment on the Alex Pretti case, O’Brien then admitted this was all for naught: “Mullin is on track to be confirmed. Senator Paul telling me he is a no. Mullin likely to get the support of one Democrat, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman.” Thursday’s Good Morning America feature more of the same shtick. Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos teased vague allusions to a “[h]eated hearing with President Trump’s pick to take over the Department of Homeland Security.” “Now to the heated confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Homeland Security, Senator Markwayne Mullin. Things got personal. He was grilled by fellow Republican Rand Paul,” Stephanopoulos later said in his toss to O’Brien. This time, O’Brien at least led with the fact that “Mullin is still on track to be confirmed as the next DHS secretary, but his nomination causing a last minute stir after that fiery hearing yesterday” before running through the supposed highlights. Shifting to NBC, Wednesday’s Nightly News included fill-in anchor Hallie Jackson declaring Mullin “fac[ed] heat” and senior correspondent Tom Costello weaving it into a story about the ongoing Homeland Security shutdown. Costello said the shutdown was “part of a contentious confirmation hearing” (along with Paul’s personal vandetta). On the substance, Costello said “Mullin softened some position on immigration policies and defended officers who shot and killed two Americans in Minneapolis” and “regrets the statements he made about Alex Pretti” shortly after his death. Thursday’s Today was more in line with the ABC newscasts in dialing up the drama. Here was co-host Craig Melvin’s tease: Getting personal...Republican Senator Rand Paul clashing with President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Inside the tense confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill and the tough questions he’s facing about national security, the role of ICE, and protecting our borders. Longtime correspondent Kelly O’Donnell had the story and made it seem like Mullin is Kristi Noem 2.0 (while also admitting Mullin himself insisted otherwise): “The Department of Homeland Security has often been at the center of controversy and the work to find a new secretary brought out more heat and drama. The President’s choice, Markwayne Mullin, made clear he sees things differently than outgoing Secretary Kristi Noem.” Long with ABC, NBC’s ‘Today’ really tried to make a mountain out of a molehill with the Mullin hearing, leaning into Rand Paul’s complaints even though they won’t actually matter pic.twitter.com/gMYyEUNJro — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 19, 2026 “But he’s also in a very personal feud with the Republican chairman, Rand Paul, who said Mullen has anger issues that could affect whether he can set the right example,” she continued. Having placed drama in the fornt, O’Donnell backloaded her piece with the actual subject matter about DHS (click “expand”): O’DONNELL: But Mullen did reverse course, admitting he was wrong to label Alex Pretti “a deranged individual” after his fatal shooting by ICE in Minneapolis. (....) O’DONNELL: Mullin, a former pro-MMA fighter, with a multi-million dollar family plumbing business, repeatedly distanced himself from fired Secretary Kristi Noem’s tenure. On deportations, he said he was open to reforms for ICE agents. MULLIN: Judicial warrants will be used to go in to houses, and into place the businesses unless we’re pursuing someone that enters in that place. O’DONNELL: Mullin said he would not close FEMA. MULLIN: I think it needs to be restructured and not eliminated. O’DONNELL: And pledged to end a Noem policy that required her signature for dispersing certain disaster relief funds that critics say caused delays. MULLIN: Absolutely. That’s called micromanaging. And I don’t know if secretary put that in or someone else did. I’m not a micromanager. O’DONNELL: Under questioning, Mullen told senators he would cooperate with investigations of the DHS contracting process under Noem’s leadership. Today, in an exclusive from NBC News, our team reports that some companies wanting to do business with the government complained to the White House that Kristi Noem aide Corey Lewandowski stood to personally profit from government contracts at DHS. That’s according to multiple sources. Lewandowski has denied those allegations[.] Finally, Wednesday’s CBS Evening News was relatively muted. Anchor Tony Dokoupil focused on DHS being without funding and one of its agencies — the TSA — bearing the brunt. He led a combined hearing/shutdown segment by emphasizing the latter: “Today, President Trump’s nominee to run Homeland Security urged lawmakers to put aside partisanship and fund the department.” Correspondent Mark Strassmann did the same, noting “Congress shows no sign of touching the impasse, other than a DHS secretary nominee waiting to get confirmed.” Only after focusing on what actually affects everyday Americans did Dokoupil allude to the personal beef, telling viewers “[t]o be confirmed, Mullin needs every Republican vote to go his way, which isn’t guaranteed, especially given the personal history he has with Senator Rand Paul, who brought it up today, questioning Mullin about comments he had made following a 2017 altercation between Paul and a neighbor.” Once he played a portion of Paul ripping into Mullin, Dokoupil ended the extended brief: “I should add, with the support of at least one Democrat on the Senate committee, Mullin is expected to eventually be confirmed.” Thursday’s CBS Mornings never even covered the hearing other than this single sentence from co-host Gayle King about the shutdown of the agency Mullin would lead: “Yesterday, the President's nominee for Homeland Security secretary urged Congress to break that deadlock.” To see the relevant transcripts from March 18, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC). To see the relevant transcripts from March 19, click here (for ABC) and here (for NBC).

A bill barring West Virginia’s government from funding biased media ratings companies that unfairly blacklist conservative news outlets has passed the state’s House of Delegates and Senate and been sent to Republican Governor Patrick Morrisey’s desk for his signature. The First Amendment Preservation Act (SB 531) prohibits state contracts with any “media reliability and bias monitor” and any marketing or advertising company that uses these monitors to direct government agency advertising placements or for use of programmatic advertising purchases. SB 531 applies to contracts by all government entities, including institutions of higher learning. It also requires written certifications from companies submitting bids attesting that they do not use media reliability and bias monitors in compliance with the act. Additionally, the written certification is required whenever any relevant contract is extended, renewed, or otherwise changed or modified, even if it the original contract was signed prior to the effective date of SB 531. SB 531 is designed to prevent “viewpoint discrimination” in state spending: “[T]o ensure that state moneys do not fund viewpoint discrimination and that state funding advertising reaches the broadest possible audience without regard for political ideology or viewpoint.” Once signed, the new law will apply to contracts delivered, executed, or renewed on or after July 1, 2026. A "Media reliability and bias monitor” is defined as a company whose primary or principle function is: “[R]ating or ranking news and information sources for the factual accuracy of their content, whether published online, in print, by audio, or digitally, or by broadcasting via radio, television, cable, streaming service, or any other ways news is delivered to the public, or that provide ratings or rankings of news sources based on misinformation, bias, adherence to journalistic standards, or ethics, including, but not limited to, organizations that claim to engage in fact checking or determining overall news accuracy.” Media monitors – such as NewsGuard, Ad Fontes Media and Global Disinformation Index – are notorious biased against media outlets that accurately report conservative viewpoints and the facts that back them up. They also refuse to acknowledge the disinformation and misinformation peddled by liberally-based media, and the failure of those media outlets to correct their inaccuracies. Multiple studies conducted by the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters have documented the leftist bias practiced by media monitors like NewsGuard, Ad Fontes Media and Global Disinformation Index: NewsGuard STILL Gives High Marks to Media that Covered Up Biden Mental Decline Scandal When outlets like CNN, Politico, Bloomberg News, Slate and others falsely cast conservatives reports of Pres. Biden’s mental deterioration as “unfounded” and “conspiracy” theories, NewsGuard continued to give these liberal outlets exceptionally high ratings. MRC Exposes NewsGuard for Leftist Bias Third Year in a Row MRC researchers determined that NewsGuard provided a stellar average “credibility” rating of 91/100 for “left” and “lean left” outlets (e.g. The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Vox), while dinging “right” and “lean right” outlets like Fox News, the New York Post and The Daily Wire with an outrageously abysmal average score of 65/100. STUDY: NewsGuard Ratings System STILL Heavily Biased in Favor of Left-Wing Media Outlets NewsGuard’s CEO tried to cast the now-verified Hunter Biden laptop scandal as a Russian “hoax” just prior to the 2020 presidential election. Even after the emails from the laptop were verified, NewsGuard maintained perfect scores for outlets like Politico, The Washington Post and USA Today, which interfered in the 2020 election by trying to bury the Biden family scandal as disinformation. STUDY: NewsGuard Ratings System Heavily Skews in Favor of Left-Wing Outlets NewsGuard’s skewed ratings give left-leaning outlets - even those who promoted the discredited Steele dossier to tie President Donald Trump to Russia - substantially more “credibility” than right-leaning outlets.  MRC ORIGINAL: Media Literacy Firm Rigged to Favor Left-Wing Media Ad Fontes uses subjective editorial decisions consistent with the views of its CEO and a rigged media ratings system designed to reward the political left and punish the political right. State Department Absurdly ‘Stands by’ Funding ‘Conservative' Blacklister The Global Disinformation Index, which received money from the State Department’s interagency GEC, was established under the Biden Administration to “defund and downrank” media outlets like the New York Post, The Federalist, RealClearPolitics and The Daily Wire. The West Virginia bill is the latest effort to crack down on the use of state and federal government taxpayer funding of biased website media rating groups used to justify viewpoint discrimination. In 2021, for example, the Biden Administration’s Department of Defense awarded nearly $750,000 to NewsGuard to assist its efforts to identify conservative website content it could brand “disinformation.” Then, in 2024, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) prohibited the U.S. Department of War from funding this type of use of media monitor ratings to blacklist potential advertising platforms. That same year, the House Committee on Small Business published a report finding that: The Federal government has fueled a censorship ecosystem impacting not only individuals’ First Amendment rights, but the ability of certain small businesses to compete online. The Federal government has funded, developed, and promoted entities that aim to demonetize news and information outlets because of their lawful speech, impacting domestic businesses’ operations, reputation, customer reach, and revenue. The report describes, not only the $750,000 award to NewsGuard, but also the Biden Administration’s dealings with similar groups, including Global Disinformation Index. On the state level, Florida lawmakers are pushing for a law prohibiting contracts involving website rating companies.