If you are a frequent viewer of the left wing media, you never stop seeing a double standard in questioning, depending on the party. That difference was on display this past week on consecutive days on CNN News Central, as host Brianna Keilar pressed former Trump economic advisor Stephen Moore, but let Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) get away with outrageous claims about President Trump. During a lengthy interview with Moore on Thursday, Keilar referred to Trump's Wednesday night speech to the nation on Iran, and went right after Moore on his earlier comments on the economy, and more.     KEILAR: He said that we're going through the strongest economy in history. If you do look at the latest CNN polling, what you're going to see is that his approval rating when it comes to handling the economy, it's actually fallen to a new career low, 31 percent, which is down eight points overall since January. It's down 14 percent with Republicans since January. That is really a dip. Is he risking these kind of Biden-style assurances that everything is fine? I'll be honest, Steven I'm hearing a little bit of that from you as well, that everything is fine, you know, it's going in the right direction, when that is not what people are acutely feeling. MOORE: Yes, look, people hate inflation. I hate inflation. You do and people watching this show, they ... KEILAR: This isn't inflation. This is the effect of a, a foreign policy decision on something that people can't avoid MOORE: That's true. And really the question and I can't answer this, you can't answer, it's the question the American people really have to ask themselves. Is the short-term pain of removing nuclear weapons and so on in Iran, and I'm not a foreign policy expert by any means, are you willing to absorb that short term pain at the pump to create potentially a more prosperous and -- and freer world?.... Next, Keilar presented a short clip of comments made by Trump during an Easter lunch.   TRUMP CLIP: We can't take care of day care. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We're, we can't take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things, they can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country. MOORE:  Clearly, the number one responsible of United States government is our national security. I don't think anybody would argue with that. I'm also a big federalist. KEILAR: Medicaid, Medicare? MOORE: We should move as many of these activities out of the corrupt federal government and the state. So, to that extent, I guess I would be in favor of what Trump is talking about. And then came the follow-up which is almost always reserved for Republicans, even if the host says she is out of time! KEILAR: All right, Stephen Moore, can I just ask you, I'm going to ask you a follow up. We're out of time. MOORE: Okay. KEILAR: I'm going to push it back, back a little bit here. She then lectured Moore that prices are high -- day care is "insane"! -- and "Is he out of touch?". Fast forward to Friday, and Keilar's treatment of Moulton, as she discusses the downing of American aircraft over Iran.   KEILAR: Have you been briefed on this? Do you expect to be? MOULTON: We expect to be briefed well after the fact, because that's what this administration does. They tell Congress well after the fact what's going on.... And right now, this administration is totally lost because they don't know what to do next. They don't know how to get out of this mess. They do not know how to end this war. If there's one thing that came out of the President's speech the other night, besides the fact that he's senile and falling asleep, is that there's no plan, there's no plan whatsoever. Senile? Falling asleep? Of course Keilar heard nothing from the Congressman that needed any follow up, as she shifted back to Trump's speech with. "I want to talk a little bit more about the capabilities of of Iran", followed by another clip. The double standard is obvious. And it's nothing new for Keilar, who last November badgered GOP congressman Mike Lawler of New York. 

It’s almost as if a mere handful of days barely goes by before yet another story about turmoil inside CBS runs somewhere in the liberal media landscape. As previously noted in this space, a few sample headlines:  CBS News Radio to End  Then, back in the stone age of 2024 in this very space the headline was:  The Corruption of CBS And The New York Times: Who Really Runs These 'News' Outlets? Then this very last week was this story focused on the network’s editor-in-chief Bari Weiss:  Bari Weiss preps major shakeup of ‘60 Minutes’ that could reshuffle top talent, producers: sources This came after CBS News announced laying off six percent of its staff, which was less than the rumored 15 percent. So maybe they won't reinvent the wheel.  Some of these problems affect all the networks. Americans under 40 aren't paying much attention to broadcast TV any more, news or entertainment. What's unique is the Left hates Bari Weiss as if she's creating "CBS Newsmax," even though it looks like nothing of the sort. Suffice to say there are more negative headlines out there about what was once nicknamed “The Tiffany Network.” Ahhh how the times have changed - and not for the good for CBS. Doubtless it galls the network’s old timers to see an upstart site named “Digital Chew” to be headlining this last year:  Why Is CBS No Longer America’s Most Trusted Network? Then in what has to be depressing for anyone inside CBS, there were these headlines on different sections of the piece:  The Fall of CBS: What Happened to the ‘Tiffany Network’?  A Glorious Past: CBS Was the King of Trust  Where Did the Trust Go? A Slow Decline for CBS  The Rise of Competition and Changing Viewer Habits  Attempts to Rebuild, but Is It Too Late?  What CBS Can Learn from Its Own History  The Bottom Line Ouch. Ouch! But, it is often reminded in the world of conventional wisdom, learning from a bad situation can lead to turning that bad situation around and making a positive situation. Take some of those headlines above. Yes, indeed. CBS was once “the King of Trust.” But what happened? Anyone of a certain age (ahem!) who has watched the network for decades and seen it go from the trusting hands of Edward R. Murrow and then on into the hands of Walter Cronkite -- the latter once dubbed “The Most Trusted Man in America” who received countless awards, both from fellow journalists and on one occasion from President Jimmy Carter -- has seen a slow-motion decline in viewer trust. And in fairness, that decline in that trust was not limited to CBS. That decline in trust was well apparent across what eventually became known as the “liberal media”. From CBS and its fellow broadcast networks to the likes of The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and others the American reading public came to the conclusion that the nation’s media had overwhelmingly moved Left - almost wholesale and decidedly unrepentantly. And the “liberal” addition to its name -making it “the liberal media” - came about because, in fact, starting at least with the Vietnam War, journalists across the board began to turn their reporting from honest journalism and transforming it into opinion journalism. It can be truthfully said that the history of American journalism began to lose its trustworthiness then and there. The obvious question? Can that trust return? And the answer is that this trust has in fact returned - but not as expected. No, the lefty Times and Washington Post and broadcast networks and other liberal media are not going to be moving right.   What’s changed is the technology. In today’s 21st century all one has to do is check out the countless conservative websites in the Internet universe. (As I’ve noted before, sites exactly like the site you are reading, NewsBusters.) Not to mention talk radio, which the late Rush Limbaugh helped launch into a major media industry.  Time, as the old saying goes, moves on. And so it has in the case of the American media. Which is, one can say, a good thing. A very good thing.  And that good thing is not going away.  Which, interestingly enough, the CBS News network, in a free fall, is finding out the hard way.

Former CBS reporter Scott MacFarlane joined Don Lemon on his Thursday Substack show to discuss leaving CBS for “independent” journalism and to continue to prove he might as well be living on another planet because he claimed the move will help him cover stories that are not currently being covered. By uncovered stories, MacFarlane did not mean super nerdy aspects of public policy or scientific research or anything like that, but rather how liberal protestors, judges, and Democratic politicians are working to oppose President Trump. Rediscovering the merits of Congressional oversight, MacFarlane claimed, “There's a lot of untold stories. Like, what happens if Democrats take control of the Congress in 2027. What are the first sets of investigations they're going to launch? Who are they going to subpoena? Who are they going to put up there in front of members at a witness table in January and February? I find that very interesting because the odds are good that happens. And I want to get into it and be ahead of the reporting.”   Former CBS reporter Scott MacFarlane claims he needed to get out of broadcast journalism because "But there's a lot of untold stories. Like, what happens if Democrats take control of the Congress in 2027. What are the first sets of investigations they're going to launch?...I… pic.twitter.com/eAAUORLcqh — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) April 4, 2026   Moving on to the judiciary, MacFarlane added, “I think what's going on with these courts and these judges and these grand jurors: fascinating how they are silently or, in some cases, through judges' opinions in the written word, pushing back on some of these overreaches by the Trump administration. There's too many of those things happening and not enough reporters chasing them. We're going to work in that space.” MacFarlane also made the hilarious claim that the media isn’t covering the No Kings protests enough, "I think the No Kings protests, the protests in the streets, the way people are pushing back against ICE and against overreach, there are too many people pushing back and not enough reporters covering it. I'd like to get involved with that.” In reality, the media has trouble shutting up about No Kings. MS NOW treated last Saturday’s No Kings protests like it was an all-day political version of the Super Bowl. The only thing lacking in the coverage of No Kings protests is acknowledging its more radical elements. However, MacFarlane kept going, “In your comments earlier, Mark mentioned, I'd like to see Election Day as a federal holiday. Yeah, it makes a lot of freaking sense. And I think what's happening with voting and threats to the midterms before and after is incredibly ripe territory for journalism.” If MacFarlane wanted to leave CBS to join the more overtly liberal media to have a hyperfocus on the opposition to Trump, then he should at least have the common courtesy to tell us he has an agenda. Instead, he paints this false picture of a news media that is neutral or worse on Trump and that is uninterested in anti-Trump activism and claims his agenda is simply one of simply information seeking.  Here is a transcript for the April 2 show: The Don Lemon Show 4/2/2026 SCOTT MACFARLANE: But there's a lot of untold stories. Like, what happens if Democrats take control of the Congress in 2027. What are the first sets of investigations they're going to launch? Who are they going to subpoena? Who are they going to put up there in front of members at a witness table in January and February? I find that very interesting because the odds are good that happens. And I want to get into it and be ahead of the reporting. I think what's going on with these courts and these judges and these grand jurors: fascinating how they are silently or, in some cases, through judges' opinions in the written word, pushing back on some of these overreaches by the Trump administration. There's too many of those things happening and not enough reporters chasing them. We're going to work in that space. I think the No Kings protests, the protests in the streets, the way people are pushing back against ICE and against overreach, there are too many people pushing back and not enough reporters covering it. I'd like to get involved with that. In your comments earlier, Mark mentioned, I'd like to see Election Day as a federal holiday. Yeah, it makes a lot of freaking sense. And I think what's happening with voting and threats to the midterms before and after is incredibly ripe territory for journalism. 

On March 5, Politico economics correspondent Victoria Guida made it clear she's frustrated that President Trump isn't losing momentum. noted  That March piece is dripping with frustration and irritation, starting with the headline: "Trump Keeps Gambling With the Economy — And Getting Away With It." Well it now appears that same bitterness on the part of Guida has carried over into April as reflected in title of her Friday story, "Job growth shatters expectations in March, in boost to Trump." And if you missed the bitterness in the title, the subtitle makes it quite clear, "That report gives the president some useful talking points as polling shows deep dissatisfaction with the state of the economy." Got that? In March Trump  was "getting away with it" on the economy and now in April he got himself some "useful talking points." We now join Guida in her current state of high irk: U.S. job growth surged past expectations in March and the unemployment rate dropped, giving President Donald Trump breathing room as the economy comes under increasing pressure over the war in Iran and rising oil prices. Companies added a net 178,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday, a huge swing from February, when the economy actually shed jobs. But it was roughly in line with January, a sharp fluctuation that is making it harder to gauge the job market’s health. But the overall positive trend suggests that the economy remained resilient during the first quarter of the year. ...None of those figures are likely to change the narrative that has prevailed over the past couple of years of a low-hire, low-fire labor market. But the unemployment rate now stands at 4.3 percent, and the manufacturing sector — which has been anemic for a long period of time — added 15,000 jobs in March. That gives Trump some useful talking points as polling shows deep dissatisfaction with the state of the economy, particularly in the wake of the war in the Middle East, which has led to a surge in gas prices. One can only wonder how much frustrated stomach acid was produced by the economic combo of March's "getting away with it" and April's "useful talking points."

Friday’s roundtable on MS NOW’s The 11th Hour concluded by naming their MVPs of the week and there were some interesting selections. MS NOW’s online editor Anthony Fisher selected Judge Randolph Moss for his nonsensical ruling that said NPR and PBS are private companies and that President Trump’s defunding of them violated the First Amendment. Meanwhile, Independent Veterans of America CEO Paul Rieckhoff picked the crew of Artemis II, which was a completely understandable selection, except he did so because he thought they provided a noticeable contrast to Trump. Fisher began by declaring “My MVP is Judge Randolph Moss, U.S. district judge out of D.C., who ruled that President Trump's executive orders that defunded NPR and PBS were illegal, constituted viewpoint discrimination. It does not mean that the federal government is going to now refund NPR or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is done.”   MS NOW editor Anthony Fisher says his MVP of the week is the judge who "who ruled that President Trump's executive orders that defunded NPR and PBS were illegal, were—constituted viewpoint discrimination...we need judges to be able to continue. We need judges to continue to say… pic.twitter.com/zS2I8AF2OC — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) April 4, 2026   Taking his victories where he can get them, Fisher continued, “So, there is a bit of a symbolic victory here, but as you mentioned before, we still are a nation of laws. And this judge—” Guest host Catherine Rampell then interrupted to cheer, “For now. Yay!” Fisher then resumed, “This judge at least said that this was unconstitutional. It was against the First Amendment. It was viewpoint discrimination. And we need judges to be able to continue. We need judges to continue to say these things, because it is my hope that the First Amendment survives this administration.” In the very first sentence of Moss’s opinion, he states that National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service are “private entities,” and therefore withholding grants from them on the basis of their liberal bias is illegal. But, of course, NPR and PBS are not private entities, and so the whole opinion was nonsensical. As for Rieckhoff, he began by declaring that his opposition to the war in Iran is as popular as the Artemis mission, “Something special happened this week. America was united and not just against the war in Iran, but when Artemis took off and everyone saw the prowess and the excellence and the visionary possibility of Artemis and of NASA, this country was united. This country was inspired. This country was proud.” He then tried accusing Trump of ruining it with his Iran speech earlier in the week while also suggesting Trump would have canceled the mission if he knew one of the astronauts was Canadian, “Now, Trump spoke a couple of hours later and, kind of, crapped on all of that. But for this moment and still now, there is a real feeling of pride in this country, in these incredible astronauts who are also diverse, and even includes an ally from Canada. And thankfully, maybe Trump didn't find out otherwise, he would have shut it down.” In the real world, Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney had a phone call on the day of the launch. Nevertheless, Rieckhoff continued in his hopes that Artemis could be a counterweight to Trump, “But Artemis is right now in space as role models for our children and giving a new generation reason to be proud to be Americans, we needed some hope. Hope is the oxygen of democracy. And we got it this week from Artemis.” Artemis was and is a unifying moment, so why does MS NOW have to try to ruin that by making it about their opposition to Trump? Here is a transcript for the April 3 show: MS NOW The 11th Hour 4/3/2026 11:51 PM ET ANTHONY FISHER: Speaking of separation of church and state, my MVP is Judge Randolph Moss, U.S. district judge out of D.C., who ruled that President Trump's executive orders that defunded NPR and PBS were illegal, constituted viewpoint discrimination. It does not mean that the federal government is going to now refund NPR or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is done. So, there is a bit of a symbolic victory here, but as you mentioned before, we still are a nation of laws. And this judge— CATHERINE RAMPELL: For now. Yay! ANTHONY FISHER: —this judge at least said that this was unconstitutional. It was against the First Amendment. It was viewpoint discrimination. And we need judges to be able to continue. We need judges to continue to say these things, because it is my hope that the First Amendment survives this administration. RAMPELL: Paul. PAUL RIECKHOFF: Something special happened this week. America was united and not just against the war in Iran, but when Artemis took off and everyone saw the prowess and the excellence and the visionary possibility of Artemis and of NASA, this country was united. This country was inspired. This country was proud. Now, Trump spoke a couple of hours later and, kind of, crapped on all of that. But for this moment and still now, there is a real feeling of pride in this country, in these incredible astronauts who are also diverse, and even includes an ally from Canada. And thankfully, maybe Trump didn't find out otherwise, he would have shut it down. But Artemis is right now in space as role models for our children and giving a new generation reason to be proud to be Americans, we needed some hope. Hope is the oxygen of democracy. And we got it this week from Artemis.