Imagine being so mentally polluted (no pun intended) by your disdain for people who disagree with your climate fanaticism that you turn them into carbon footprint monster in their obituaries? That’s exactly what leftist media outlets did writ large upon the passing of legendary former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond. Outlets like Bloomberg News, The New York Times, the Houston Chronicle and the Australia-based Sydney Morning Herald all took aim at Raymond following news of his death at age 87. They all turned Raymond into Mother Earth’s archnemesis by making him the face of Big Oil and the so-called climate change denier movement. Some even went as far as to compare Raymond to one of the most notorious Sith Lord villains in Star Wars. Never mind that the “unrelenting” Raymond’s life could be seen as one of America’s great success stories in turning ExxonMobil into the world’s most profitable company for a time, as The Wall Street Journal highlighted. But when do we expect the lefty journalists to purely celebrate anything Americana? Anyone gonna get an obit headline like "CEO Who Doubted Two Genders"? https://t.co/6uO3Sgafdc — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) June 11, 2026 Bloomberg News was arguably the worst offender, as reporters Joe Carroll and Kevin Crowley teed off their June 10 obituary coverage of Raymond in the lede paragraph with disgusting grave-stomping spin: Lee Raymond, the former head of Exxon Mobil Corp. who oversaw the biggest corporate merger in the history of the oil industry and was derided as ‘the Darth Vader of global warming’ for his skepticism toward climate change, has died. He was 87. “Darth Vader?” Really? Raymond is comparable to a Sith Lord who committed genocide against the Jedi during the tumult of Order 66 because he made an oil company successful? Carroll and Crowley’s headline for their pathetic excuse for an obituary was just as ridiculous: “Lee Raymond, Exxon CEO Who Doubted Climate Change, Dies at 87.”  It’s worth comparing Bloomberg News’s treatment of Raymond to how it honored some of society’s less respectable figureheads, to say the least. Consider its March 23 story headlined, “Leonid Radvinsky, Who Changed Porn With OnlyFans, Dies at 43.” That obituary was much friendlier to Radvinsky, despite the fact that he was instrumental in mainstreaming one of the most vile, pay-for-play sex schemes on the market: Radvinsky bought a majority stake in the platform in 2018 and turned it into a cultural phenomenon that reshaped the pornography industry by allowing creators to charge directly for their content.  See the problem yet? The Sydney Morning Herald actually managed to take it a step further by reposting Bloomberg News’s horrific obit and re-engineering it with a grotesque headline that made the “Darth Vader” moniker the centerpiece of Raymond’s story: “Exxon CEO Lee Raymond, the ‘Darth Vader of global warming’, dies at 87.” Sheesh, at least Carroll and Crowley buried the caricature in the lede paragraph. The Houston Chronicle was no better, running a screed on Raymond June 10 headlined, “Lee Raymond, former Exxon CEO who denied climate change, dies at 87, WSJ reports.” Staff Writer Ashley Soebroto seethed that Raymond “a key target of the #ExxonKnew movement, which highlighted how the corporation ignored the impact of carbon dioxide on global warming.” Yes, “Carbon dioxide” as in the gas that trees rely on to produce oxygen, which practically every species needs to survive. Soebroto continued her smear, “Searches of Exxon Mobil's archives showed company leaders knew of the risks and downplayed them, the Chronicle reported previously.” The New York Times writer James Hagerty attempted to be subtle by making his headline appear straight, only to then skewer Raymond in his subheadline: “He oversaw Exxon’s acquisition of a rival, cut costs relentlessly and denied the scientific consensus on climate change.” Hagerty then went gloves off! and went on the offensive against Raymond’s corpse: Lee R. Raymond, who as chief executive of Exxon Mobil wrung out costs to make that global oil company the most profitable in its industry while stoutly resisting the scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels was causing a potentially disastrous warming of the Earth, died on Saturday in Dallas. He was 87. The body isn’t even cold yet, guys! Is it possible to hold off on the rabid editorializing for a bit, or is even that asking too much?

ICE has been a favorite target of the media ever since President Donald Trump began putting it into action during his second term as president. On Friday, CNN continued their unfair coverage of the federal agency on News Central, where co-host Kate Bolduan and correspondent Priscilla Alvarez clutched their pearls about an ICE arrest on school grounds in Baltimore, treating school grounds a home base in a game of tag. But they downplayed how the illegals fled there, assaulting an officer and dragging him along. Leading into the segment, Bolduan framed the situation as heartless ICE agents traumatizing kids: This morning, there is backlash growing after immigration agents in Baltimore detained two people on school grounds as kids were walking in for the school day. Agents could be seen pulling a man and a woman from their SUV, and children were walking just feet away. A state senator says there also were two children inside the SUV that they were pulling them out of, and say that teachers pulled those children from the car as this was happening.   CNN crying about ICE detaining illegal migrants at a school, but skim over the assaulting of an officer and the violent resisting of arrest! After that, its all about "the circumstances" that led them there. pic.twitter.com/XgyjBZn8GY — James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) June 12, 2026   Of course, the situation looks bad when CNN covers it. They would love it if the story was just the arrest and nothing more! Unfortunately for them, the context of the situation reveals essential details about the arrest, denying them a perfect sob story to demonize the agency. As Alvarez portrayed them: This pursuit of this man, who was accompanied by his family, led ICE to school grounds where it was, as you see there in the video, they executed that arrest of him and the woman in the vehicle. ICE didn’t lurk at the school to catch these parents - they led ICE to the school themselves! However, having given token acknowledgement to the actual facts of the situation, CNN proceeds to spend the rest of the segment playing up ICE’s presence at the school, barely even acknowledging how they actually got there (Click “expand”): ALVAREZ: Now, again, this happened at a moment where there were children around, there were multiple witnesses, and it happened, again, on school grounds, which immediately has received pushback.  We got a quote from the governor, Wes Moore, where he said this, quote, "Schools are places where children should feel safe, where parents should be able to drop off their kids without fear, and where educators should be able to focus on teaching, not where federal agents carry out immigration enforcement actions in front of children." Now I have been told that there were calls between ICE and school and state officials where ICE was, quote, “apologetic,” according to a source familiar with the incident and noted the circumstances that ultimately led them to be on school grounds where they conducted these arrests.   They spend the rest of the segment pearl-clutching about the fact that the detention occurred in front of kids at a school... but it was the illegals that fled there trying to escape the officers! pic.twitter.com/3n97lU9SOK — James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) June 12, 2026   Barely any mention of the migrants refusing police demands and violently resisting arrest. The entire piece after that one sentence is a whole bunch of fearmongering and scare tactics, making ICE seem like the baddies. While reading the Homeland Security statement on the incident, Alvarez skipped over key parts, such as how one of the illegals had previously fled ICE and damaged a vehicle in the process, and the other punched an officer. This shouldn’t come as a shock, however. CNN has been unfair to ICE many times in the past, and they will take anything they can get to tarnish the federal agency’s reputation, regardless of whether or not they are actually at fault. That’s just how the media works, full of partisan messaging and lacking a drop of fair coverage. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN News Central June 12, 2026 08:15:15 Eastern KATE BOLDUAN: This morning, there is backlash growing after immigration agents in Baltimore detained two people on school grounds as kids were walking in for the school day. Agents could be seen pulling a man and a woman from their SUV, and children were walking just feet away. A state senator says there also were two children inside the SUV that they were pulling them out of, and say that teachers pulled those children from the car as this was happening. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez joins us right now. She's got more details coming in about this. The video is quite something. Priscilla, what are you learning about this? PRISCILLA ALVAREZ: Well, Kate, these arrests immediately drew concern from educators that were on the scene as well as state officials because these were arrests that not only happened on school grounds but also happened as preparations were underway for pre-k and kindergarten ceremonies. So you see there, there were children who were passing by, because this was also drop-off time according to the school, who were witnessing this arrest happen.  Now let me tell you what happened that led to this incident according to the Department of Homeland Security. So this was an individual, the man, Jesus Acevedo-Sanchez, who was targeted by ICE. They had approached him. He refused lawful commands according to DHS, and I'm quoting here, “violently resisted arrest and used his vehicle to evade law enforcement, dragging an ICE officer in the process.” This pursuit of this man, who was accompanied by his family, led ICE to school grounds where it was, as you see there in the video, they executed that arrest of him and the woman in the vehicle. We understand them to be parents. They were with their two children who were in the backseat. Educators say that they pulled the children out of the vehicle and brought them into the school. We have since learned from the Department of Homeland Security that the parents were offered the opportunity to contact a relative, and now those children are in the custody of their aunt. The two parents are also now facing federal charges according to the Department of Homeland Security for assaulting officers. Now, again, this happened at a moment where there were children around, there were multiple witnesses, and it happened, again, on school grounds, which immediately has received pushback. We got a quote from the governor, Wes Moore, where he said this, quote, "Schools are places where children should feel safe, where parents should be able to drop off their kids without fear, and where educators should be able to focus on teaching, not where federal agents carry out immigration enforcement actions in front of children." Now I have been told that there were calls between ICE and school and state officials where ICE was, quote, “apologetic,” according to a source familiar with the incident and noted the circumstances that ultimately led them to be on school grounds where they conducted these arrests.  We've similarly got a statement from DHS on this, where they said, quote, "ICE does not target schools, but we will not allow criminals to hide in our nation's schools and put the safety of our children at risk." And there again, describing what led them to that arrest in their pursuit of this undocumented immigrant. So again, we will continue to follow the story as well as where these children are now. We know they're with their aunt, but any more that we can learn, we'll share with you as soon as we know it.   BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Priscilla, thank you so much for your reporting, for the context around all of it. I appreciate it. 

For almost 200 years after the nation’s founding in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. could brag about having the world’s strongest long-term currency, with hardly any inflation until the 1960s, the decade when President Lyndon B. Johnson took silver out of our coins. Then, Nixon closed the gold window in 1971. This debasement of our currency was a natural outgrowth of excessive spending by LBJ and by every President and Congress of both major political parties in the 60 years since then. At the time of our nation’s birth, however, all of our major Founding Fathers spoke glowingly of gold and silver. They had struggled with inflation caused by paper “Continentals,” which flooded the nation then. At one point, in 1779, General George Washington wrote to John Jay, our future first Chief Justice, in a plea for sound money, “A wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions.”   Meanwhile, the man most responsible for writing the Declaration was no less eloquent about gold. The Declaration’s author, Thomas Jefferson, said, “Paper is poverty … it is only the ghost of money and not money itself.” Later on, as President in 1802, he wrote to Albert Gallatin, his Treasury Secretary, saying, “Specie (gold and silver coin) is the most perfect medium because it will preserve its own level; because, having intrinsic and universal value, it can never die in our hands, and it is the surest resource of reliance in time of war.” In retirement, during the War of 1812 and the inflation which followed, Jefferson became even more outspoken in his call for gold and restraints on banks. Writing to John W. Eppes in 1813, Jefferson said: “If the debt which the banking companies owe be a blessing to anybody, it is to themselves alone, who are realizing a solid interest of eight or ten per cent on it. As to the public, these companies have banished all our gold and silver medium, which, before their institution, we had without interest, which never could have perished in our hands, and would have been our salvation now in the hour of war; instead of which they have given us two hundred million of froth and bubble, on which we are to pay them heavy interest, until it shall vanish into air … The truth is that capital may be produced by industry and accumulated by economy but jugglers only will propose to create it by legerdemain tricks with paper.” After the war’s end, Jefferson didn’t give up the fight, as he wrote to John Taylor, in 1816, “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around (them) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” John Adams was the man most responsible for convincing Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence and later, in 1787, Adams wrote to Jefferson in Paris, “All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.” Thomas Paine, famous for saying “Give me liberty or give me death,” also spoke eloquently about gold: “Gold and silver are the emissions of nature: paper is the emission of art. The value of gold and silver is ascertained by the quantity which nature has made in the earth. We cannot make that quantity more or less than it is, and therefore, the value, being dependent upon the quantity, depends not on man. Man has no share in making gold or silver; all that his labors and ingenuity can accomplish is to collect it from the mine, refine it for use and give it an impression or stamp it into coin…. Nature has provided the proper materials for money: gold and silver, and any attempt of ours to rival her is ridiculous.” All these forces came together in our Constitution, drafted by James Madison, writing: “Congress shall have Power … To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” (Article 1, Section 8), and “No State shall... coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” (Article I, Section 10). As our 250th national birthday approaches, maybe some politicians ought to look to gold, not paper! Dr. Mike Fuljenz, founder of Universal Coin & Bullion in Beaumont, Texas, is a leading coin expert and market analyst whose insightful writing and consumer advocacy have earned major honors from the ANA, PNG, NLG and the Press Club of Southeast Texas. McNeese State University awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 2015.

For those following NewsBusters’ coverage of the defamation cases brought against CNN (successful) and the Associated Press (on-going) by Navy veteran Zachary Young, one name should be familiar: Charles D. Tobin. A lawyer with Ballard Spahr, Tobin was part of the legal team that represented CNN and then the AP. As with the nature of defamation cases, both hinged on words and their interpretations. Tobin’s arguments before Florida’s First District Court of Appeal have repeatedly shown an aversion to holding the media to objective definitions. In the CNN case, the phrase “black market” was one of the contentious points Young successfully argued were defamatory against him. In an unsuccessful April 2024 appeal to the 1st DCA to overturn a ruling allowing Young to seek punitive damages, Tobin argued that a subjective use of the phrase be adopted (emphasis added): Here, we're on a question of actual malice, express malice, and outrageous conduct measured by objective standards. Under that criteria, your honor, regardless of what the meaning may be in the dictionary, which is an objective definition. What plaintiff needed to show is that subjectively CNN intended that meaning, otherwise there is no facts in the record to give rise to a reasonable jury question about actual [malice]. “So, these are lawyers and professional writers that, you know, are used to dealing with words and have dictionaries and know how precise – what words mean?” pressed Judge L. Clayton Roberts. Judge Thomas D. Winokur drilled down on the dictionary definition of “black market.” Tobin suggested it was simply just a “poor choice of words”:  WINOKUR: I hate to keep harping on this, but none of those things describe what could be commonly referred to as “black market.” I see Judge Roberts's point that “black market” clearly implies dictionary definition or otherwise, an illegal exchange of goods. TOBIN: Your honor. WINOKUR: That has nothing to do with those other descriptions in the chyron. TOBIN: If it was a poor choice of words, your honor, and at best, we argue that it was at best a poor choice of words, your honor. That may have an impact on the rest of this case below under negligent standard, actual malice.     Young’s lead counsel Vel Freedman of Freedman Normand Friedland LLP made swift work of CNN’s argument:  So, what CNN is claiming is they took a word from the English language that has one definition and they meant when they said “black market,” they actually meant “grey market,” but they said “black market” that has one definition. CNN can't get up there and say, “Hey, Mr. Young is a serial killer,” but actually mean that he was a good Samaritan, but they only knew that in their head. Fast forward to June 9, 2026, speaking to the same Judge Roberts on behalf of the AP, Tobin was argued that the AP’s stylebook - essentially their own dictionary - should not be looked to for the objective definition of the word “smuggle” which Young pointed to in his lawsuit (emphasis added):  ROBERTS: The AP publishes something called the AP Style Manual, correct? TOBIN: Correct. ROBERTS: And it defines “smuggling,” and the definition that the AP publishes for their reporters to use, and lots of other people use it, it says “smuggling” is an illegal activity. TOBIN: It says, “human smuggling” is an illegal activity, or “people smuggling,” the whole point of defining a term, Your Honor, we do this in our briefs every day, is to use the term consistently from case-to-case moment-to-moment within it as you're walking through a brief. The AP did not use the terms in its Stylebook. The Stylebook is inapt as, it is inapplicable to the circumstances of this case.   In a defamation hearing today, AP's lawyer argues to a panel of judges that their style guide doesn't matter. He argues that it's okay the AP didn't follow their own guidelines when they used a word their book gives a negative meaning that implied illegality to describe the… pic.twitter.com/vmVbu0ijtk — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 9, 2026   “We just heard the attorney for the Associated Press get up here and say that its stylebook, which is a handbook for journalists, for students worldwide, does not apply to this case, that its reporter should not be held to what it says,” Young’s counsel Lisa Glass proclaimed when it was time for her rebuttal. “Words matter. The AP created its own stylebook to ensure that.” Further, Tobin got philosophical about how to define words: And Your Honor, we haven't talked yet about Judge Winokur's question, which I think does drive the decision that the court should reach here, which is, how do you read something? What are the tools that the court uses to read something when somebody argues that they're all avail themselves of more than one meeting? “And what you do is you look to the context for the defamatory meaning question, you look to the context of the entire publication,” he answered himself. How the media defend themselves in court gives incite to how the media operate in their newsrooms and editorial meetings. Words apparently have no objective meaning; they have one meaning in their reports and other in the courtroom.

“Our officers wear masks to protect themselves and their families,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) explained Friday, calling the mask ban signed by Democrat Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger “unconstitutional.” “To be clear: We will NOT comply with @GovernorVA’s unconstitutional mask ban,” DHS declared in a social media post thanking the U.S. Justice Department for filing a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, and Commonwealth Attorney for Fairfax, Virginia Steve Descano. DHS officers are being targeted by “a coordinated campaign of violence” that has surged, DHS noted: “Our law enforcement officers are facing a coordinated campaign of violence including a more than 1,300% increase in assaults and an 8,000% increase in death threats. Our officers wear masks to protect themselves and their families. Thank you to @TheJusticeDept for continuing to stand with the heroic men and women of our law enforcement.” On Thursday, the Justice Department announced that it has filed a lawsuit challenging Virginia’s “unconstitutional attempt to regulate federal law enforcement officers by criminally prohibiting federal officers from wearing masks [and] requiring individual identifiers.” Virginia’s law threatens the safety of federal officers facing a wave of harassment, doxing and violence, the Justice Department release says. "Virginia’s anti-law enforcement policies regulate the federal government and are designed to create risk for our agents. These laws cannot stand," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. Gov. Spanberger signed the “Prohibition on wearing of facial coverings; penalty” into law on May 20, 2026. It is slated to take effect on July 1, 2026. In its civil action, the Justice Department’s complaint filed Thursday seeks declaratory and injunctive relief preempting the law. In February, Acting Attorney General Blanche issued a memorandum initiating an investigation into all state and local laws, policies and processes that “facilitate violations of federal laws or impede lawful federal operations.” Thursday’s lawsuit is the latest in a series of lawsuits challenging such illegal activities, DHS reports. Thursday’s complaint asks the court to preliminarily and permanently enjoin Virginia from enforcing the state law threatening the safety of federal agencies and employees.