Hard-left hysteric and Yale professor Jason Stanley is fleeing to Canada and tax-funded television is on it. Amanpour & Co. trumpeted that night’s guest, Yale professor Jason Stanley, absconding the US in the subject line of the show’s promotional email: "EXCLUSIVE: 'How Fascism Works' Author Jason Stanley Plans to Leave the U.S.” Host Christiane Amanpour: Trump's America has started to challenge and redefine academic freedom, and our next guest is sounding the alarm. Yale professor Jason Stanley is the author of Erasing History -- How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future….How new teaching guidelines are stoking a culture of fear and why he is taking drastic measures as a result. Interviewer Michel Martin, who is also an NPR morning host, sympathetically drew out Stanley’s crazed interpretation of Trump’s educational policy, which he terms “educational authoritarianism.” Jason Stanley: That means that he is creating a culture of fear in universities, they already have done this in states like Florida creating culture of fear in K- 12 education. But authoritarianism requires a culture of fear. It requires a feeling like the state is always looking over your shoulder, feeling like there are vague rules that you can be punished for and your fellow citizens have been empowered to report you…. Martin: What sparked your latest piece for The Guardian was this Dear Colleague letter that the Department of Education issued, the Office of Civil Rights issued on February 14th, it was a letter to American educational institutions and it essentially reinterpreted federal civil rights law. Let me read a little bit, it says that “educational institutions have indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon systemic and structural racism and advanced discriminatory policies and practices and proponents of these discriminatory practices and attempt to further justify them, particularly during the last four years, under the banner of diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race consciousness into everyday training, programming and discipline.”… Stanley: [Department of Education head] Linda McMahon's final mission statement of the Department of Education, she mentions patriotic education as the goal here to impose on K-12 and universities. The problem here is that the United States is founded and built upon systematic racism and inclusion. It’s part of our founding documents that we wanted to take more indigenous land. So slavery, the United States is built on slavery, there is no factual argument about that…. Martin’s follow-ups were the mildest possible challenges. Martin: ....conservatives would say that progressives or non-conservatives, whatever you want to say, are just mad because they are offering an alternative ideology. That they're just replacing one ideology with another. I think that their argument is that elections have consequences and they get to do that. What do you say to that? Stanley: There's no such thing, in a democracy, the state cannot impose a required patriotic ideology.... When Martin brought up Columbia University being punished by the Trump administration for fostering an atmosphere of anti-Semitism against Jewish students and admitted “the reality of it is, there are a lot of Jewish students at Columbia that did feel threatened and demeaned by these demonstrations,” Stanley changed the subject to the supposed threatening environment for Arabs at Columbia. His hostile interpretation of the Trump administration trying to protect Jewish students on campus was truly warped. Stanley: What are the most toxic anti-Semitic tropes? Jews control the institutions. This is absolutely reinforcing this. Any young American is going to think, remember what happened when they took down the world's greatest university system on behalf of Jewish safety? This will go down in history books. The history of this era will say that Jewish people were the sledgehammer for fascism…. Asked by Martin why Columbia was going along with the Trump diktats, Stanley called some Columbia employees “traitors to their own institutions” and that “Columbia is completely bending to an authoritarian regime,” before dropping his bombshell: “I'm seeing this everywhere and it is one reason that I am probably leaving the United States for Toronto.” Martin: Really? I was going to ask, what are your thoughts about your own course here? So you feel strongly enough about this that you're going to leave the country? Stanley elaborated that “I’m leaving because the political climate for the universities and political climate for freedom looks grim in this country. We face a fascist regime.” He also talked of “mass incarceration” and “violent policing” in America as a concern given his two black sons. Host Amanpour wrapped up Stanley’s insane segment with gush and self-importantly including journalists like herself as among the potential victims of Trump’s fascism: “And what a robust defense, and especially the notion that for all of our professions, an attack on one is an attack on all.”

Tuesday night in his newsletter Status, former conservative reporter-turned-caustic progressive Oliver Darcy was in need of a fainting couch, some pearls to clutch, or a safe space over a supposed sign of the apocalypse in The Washington Post slowly backing away from its dumb slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” To be clear, the Jeff Bezos-owned paper told him it won’t be retired anytime soon. But because it’s not in your face, The Post’s supposed embrace of Donald Trump’s perceived authoritarianism is illustrated in the paper having “quietly removed the slogan...its mobile app” and at the top of articles. Darcy wrote in his article “Democracy Dies in the Light” that “Bezos and the business community have taken an entirely different tact” in “openly” working “to woo” President Trump just years after they took “a more adversarial approach in dealing with him” and openly “signaled the stakes of the moment.” “The removal of the slogan from the opening sequence occurred over the last few weeks when the app received an update. ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ also no longer appears at the top of the mobile homepage, though it remains visible on the desktop version of the website and in print editions of the newspaper,” he explained. So, what slogans have they started deploying instead? Well, the perpetual skunk at the garden party lamented “Switch on” and “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.” The latter is already, unsurprisingly, not “terribly popular among staffers.” A Darcy source from inside The Post illustrated the far-left papers hatred for over 70 million Americans: “It’s kind of hard to tell stories for all of America when a massive portion of the country doesn't even work based on the same set of facts.” Keep that in mind when reading The Post that’s what many of them think of anyone who believes in news that informs and unifies. Just like he did with the “Gulf of America” hubbub and the lack of boycotts by the White House press corps in support of the Associated Press, Darcy suggested this meaningless tweak was a harbinger for the direction of the country and that the newspaper — at least in the eyes of Bezos — might not be a hate movement against conservatives: To the average observer, the moves might be subtle enough to miss. But to the trained eye of those who currently work and have worked at The Post, the changes are glaring. After all, "Democracy Dies in Darkness" wasn't just a catchphrase, it was something of a rallying cry for the newsroom. Now, amid fear of democratic backsliding in the U.S., The Post appears to be no longer as enamored by it—just as Bezos looks to curry favor with Trump. And given that Bezos once asserted that the slogan should always appear alongside The Post's logo, the fact that they no longer do in some spots is noteworthy. Bezos, quite evidently, does not wish The Post to be seen as a #Resistance publication. Instead, as signaled by the newspaper's new mission statement, he wants the outlet to appeal to "all of Am erica." In other words, he wants The Post to be a newspaper that Trump supporters also find credible and might consider subscribing to. Sanding down some of the old branding associated with the #Resistance era might help in those efforts. Bezos closed as though he’s as mob boss, lecturing Bezos that while he “may want...unifying news organizations broadly trusted by most of the country,” the country and “a lot of the world” want the opposite because “[s]hared reality is a relic of the past.”

As an NPR alum, a former All Things Considered co-host, you might well have expected Audie Cornish to forcefully defend continued federal funding for NPR/PBS. So it came as a surprise—bordering on outright shock—to hear Cornish on today's CNN This Morning, which she hosts, make the case for letting federal funding lapse. Cornish's unanticipated comments came during a conversation with Democrat Peter Welch, the junior senator from Vermont, in the wake of yesterday's hearing before the House DOGE subcommittee on NPR/PBS funding. Cornish wasted no time in putting it to Welch: "Why shouldn't NPR and PBS stand up on their own?" When Welch replied that the two organizations "largely do" stand on their own, Cornish countered: "If it's just 1% of funding, why do they, like, why not take that cut and figure out something else? At a certain point, don't you want to be inoculated from what is ending up a cyclical political discussion about its funding?" Sounds like Cornish might have been speaking as something of a Democrat strategist. Why not give up a measly 1% of overall funding, and in doing so, take the perennial issue away from the Republicans? Something akin, perhaps, to how Dobbs' overturning of Roe v. Wade diminished the abortion issue for the pro-life cause. Welch finished by unwittingly making the case for defunding. He boasted: "You see the support in Vermont, because we have the highest per capita contributions to NPR." Guess what else Vermont led the nation in? The percentage of people voting for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election! No wonder the Ben & Jerry crowd poured its money into NPR/PBS: two outfits whose reporting was slanted in favor of Ms. Passage of Time, and against Orange Man Bad!   Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 3/27/25 6:53 am EDT AUDIE CORNISH: I have one more brief question. I used to work at NPR. You were at Vermont, which has a huge Vermont public radio presence for like rural communities there. But that was a hearing yesterday. The questioning of their funding was happening at the same time as people were talking to law enforcement leaders on the Hill.  You also have legislation that would help local news organizations get funding grants to stand up on their own. Why shouldn't NPR and PBS stand up on their own?  PETER WELCH: Well, they largely do. I mean, in Vermont, we have -- CORNISH: But if it's just 1% of funding, why do they, like, why not take that cut and figure out something else?  WELCH: Well, first of all, in that question of local news, NPR in Vermont, it's not this monolith of NPR everywhere. We have our local affiliates. And in Vermont, it literally is the voice that kind of unifies Vermont because they have terrific local news.  And you see the support in Vermont, because we have the highest per capita contributions to NPR.  So you may be a farmer, you have it on in your barn, you may be an office worker and you can have it on in your office, but it does provide an underlying glue that helps hold Vermont as a community together despite having very rural and very urban areas in the state.  CORNISH: Yeah. I wanted to ask you the question because at a certain point, don't you want to be inoculated from what is ending up a cyclical political discussion about its funding?  WELCH: Well, sure. But here's the issue that I think is so important, local news. And this debate in Congress is about managing the news. People who don't like what they may be hearing on a particular station. So NPR, PBS becomes a, a, a symbol. But in fact, shouldn't our goal be to have strong local news across the country? In my view, NPR and PBS assist in that.  So I'm a supporter, and I actually think the biggest problem, one of the big problems we have is that local news has become so weakened because of what has happened on the internet and the whole advertising model that has been essential to the well-being of local press has been destroyed. 

Staunchly racist co-host of ABC’s The View, Sunny Hostin was at it again on Wednesday and Thursday as she was doing her part to compound the controversy surrounding a Signal group chat utilized by members of President Trump’s cabinet. On back-to-back days, she made racially tinged attacks on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth while simultaneously praising former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and boasting about his race. She would eventually suggest Hegseth was the mediocre DEI hire. Let’s quickly put things into context. A month ago, while complaining about being called out as a “race baiter,” Hostin lashed out at white people for supposedly having easy lives: “It's been about white mediocre men that are given opportunities…You have to be average if you're white; if you are black, you must – your average must be excellent in order to compete.” Fast forward to Wednesday of this week, and Hostin was again up in arms over Hegseth replacing Austin. Of course, she made it about race: [T]he other thing that I would note is that Pete Hegseth. What sort of example is he leading as the secretary of defense? Is he leading for -- no example. And who did he replace? He replaced a four-star general from the United States Army, Lloyd Austin, an African American who was relieved of his duties. Now, Pete Hegseth was a Fox News host but he was also a former captain in the Army National Guard. He served in the military, but he lacks senior military experience or any national security experience. “So, when you replace excellence by mediocrity, that is what you get,” she proclaimed, echoing her racist rhetoric about white people being “mediocre.” Hostin then equated Hegseth’s hiring in terms of DEI, arguing that Austin’s was better: So, when they want to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, giving people advantages that don't deserve advantages, what we really need to do is reframe that. It's giving people advantages because of their excellence when they haven't had the opportunities before.     Her whining seemed to betray her ignorance to the fact that defense secretaries often don’t stick around with new presidents. Former President Biden didn’t keep President Trump’s Mark Esper around. Or perhaps she was just trying to gaslight the viewers into thinking Trump’s hiring of a new secretary was racially motivated. “You know, the thing is we all knew that Hegseth was unqualified for this job and he replaced a four-star general with over 40 years of experience, Lloyd Austin,” Hostin continued to rant on Thursday. “And this would not have happened and did not happen on Lloyd Austin's watch.” This was misinformation from Hostin to obfuscate the communication scandal involving Austin. In 2023, Austin disappeared for several days and no one knew his whereabouts, not even Biden. It turned out that Austin had been hospitalized as he underwent a medical procedure to fight a cancer, which also was not disclosed to the proper figures. Austin was also in charge of the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. No one was fired or forced to resign despite the fact that 13 service members were killed in a suicide attack at Abbey Gate. But the hypocrisy of her own arguments wasn’t enough to dissuade Hostin from calling for Trump’s Cabinet members to be fired; it seemed to be the point as she laughably boasted about disgraced former Secret Service boss Kimberly Cheatle resigning after the first assassination attempt on Trump: But what I will say is to your question initially, Whoopi, these people need to be fired. They need to be held accountable. I remember when following the July 13th rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when there was an assassination attempt on the President's life, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said ‘the buck stops with me’ and she resigned. She resigned. She didn't put it on anyone else. The comparison was ridiculous because Cheatle didn’t resign out of some sense of honor and responsibility. She was forced to resign because politicians on both sides of the isle were calling for it amid her terrible excuses (like blaming the slope of a roof) and combative/unsatisfactory answers in a hearing. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View March 26, 2025 11:07:20 a.m. Eastern (…) SUNNY HOSTIN: [T]he other thing that I would note is that Pete Hegseth. What sort of example is he leading as the secretary of defense? Is he leading for -- no example. And who did he replace? He replaced a four-star general from the United States Army, Lloyd Austin. [Applause] An African American, who was relieved of his duties. Now, Pete Hegseth was a Fox News host but he was also a former captain in the Army National Guard. He served in the military, but he lacks senior military experience or any national security experience. JOY BEHAR: What about his time on Fox News, though? You’re forgetting he was a Fox News anchor. HOSTIN: Fox News host! So, my point is Lloyd Austin served in the military for 41 years. We're talking about command at the corps, division, battalion, brigade levels, according to the Defense Department. So, when you replace excellence by mediocrity, that is what you get. [Applause] So, when they want to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, giving people advantages that don't deserve advantages, what we really need to do is reframe that. It's giving people advantages because of their excellence when they haven't had the opportunities before. (…) March 27, 2025 11:05:53 a.m. Eastern HOSTIN: You know, the thing is we all knew that Hegseth was unqualified for this job and he replaced a four-star general with over 40 years of experience, Lloyd Austin. And this would not have happened and did not happen on Lloyd Austin's watch. But what I will say is to your question initially, Whoopi, these people need to be fired. They need to be held accountable. I remember when following the July 13th rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when there was an assassination attempt on the President's life, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said ‘the buck stops with me’ and she resigned. She resigned. She didn't put it on anyone else. Pete Hegseth is the person that is responsible. Yeah. He's the person -- secretary of defense, he is responsible for everything. It was his decision to use that group chat to type out this highly sensitive information. BEHAR: But how come Trump didn't know about this group chat? He’s the commander-in-chief. SARA HAINES: Do you really believe that he doesn't know? He also doesn't know he lost an election. BEHAR: Well, he says he didn’t know. That’s true [points to Haines]. [Laughter] HAINES: I don't know that I'm following that completely. (…)

For the first time on CNN since the ruling came out in January, CNN viewers finally got an inkling of the fact that the network was found liable for malicious defamation of Navy veteran Zachary Young. No, it wasn’t because the network finally decided to be open an honest with their viewers; it was because Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins demanded answers on behalf of “one of my veterans” on Wednesday night. His insistence on getting answers left The Source host, Kaitlan Collins bewildered. Despite Doug Collins not being involved with the controversial group chat on Signal between other cabinet members and him already answering her questions about it, Kaitlan decided to pester him about it some more instead of talking about veterans. “Yes, and I do have questions about the veterans. But given what we saw with the group chat…Is this typical for the Cabinet to have conversations over Signal? Is this something that you use?” she wanted to know. Noting that his host “undoubtedly [did] not want to talk about the V.A.” and “my job is to take care of veterans,” Doug spun the tables around on Kaitlan. Eyes going wide, Kaitlan squirmed in her seat as he mentioned the network’s great taboo: And I would like to know why CNN is hostile to veterans, especially one in Florida, where you just had a $5 million defamation suit, taking offense at a veteran who was trying to help people. In fact, one of your employees actually said, ‘We're going to nail him.’ I have a question for you, Kaitlan. Is that employee still employed? Are you really concerned about veterans? So, if we don't want to talk about veterans now, and you want to talk about everything else, I'd like to hear from CNN, as the Veteran Cabinet Secretary, why CNN seems to have a problem with veterans?     What Kaitlan refused to answers was, yes, the reporters responsible for defaming Young (chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt, intelligence and national security reporter Katie Bo Lillis, and host Jake Tapper) were all still employed by CNN. In fact, CNN gave Marquardt a promotion amid the case proceedings. Kaitlan desperately tried to deflect away from the truth that Doug spoke. “Well, Mr. Secretary, respectfully, my question was about whether or not you, as a member of the Cabinet use this,” she tried to say, but Doug kept pressing. Possibly a Freudian slip for how CNN thinks themselves authority figures, Kaitlan bizarrely described their conversation as her “investigation.” “And respectfully, I'm conducting the investigation. And I do have a lot of questions for you, on Veterans Affairs. But I don't think it would be unwarranted to ask if you as a member of the Cabinet [use Signal],” she huffed. That holier-than-thou attitude was part of what got CNN in trouble with the Bay County, Florida jury. “What you want to do is talk about a subject that I have already answered,” he said. “And it does mean no good to speculate on something that I've already asked and answered. So I've asked and answered your question.” The Secretary continued to try to get answers: “Why don't you answer mine? Are you still in -- is this person still employed, who said they were going to nail one of my veterans, who you had to do a $5 million award from a jury because of defamation, and then you settled the case? Answer my question.” “Respectfully, sir, I'm asking the questions here,” Kaitlan shot back before trying to tone thing down a bit by noting: “I have no involvement in what you're referencing there.” The conversation then quickly pivoted to actually talking about veteran affairs. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN’s The Source March 26, 2025 9:23:28 p.m. Eastern (…) KAITLAN COLLINS: Yes, and I do have questions about the veterans. But given what we saw with the group chat, and how this was used. You are a member of the Cabinet. You obviously know these other members, several of them who were in there. Is this typical for the Cabinet to have conversations over Signal? Is this something that you use? V.A. SECRETARY DOUG COLLINS: Well, Kaitlan, since you undoubtedly do not want to talk about the V.A. I have a question, as V.A. Secretary, as Cabinet, I want to ask you, because I've been curious about this, because my job is to take care of veterans. And I would like to know why CNN is hostile to veterans, especially one in Florida, where you just had a $5 million defamation suit, taking offense at a veteran who was trying to help people. In fact, one of your employees actually said, ‘We're going to nail him.’ I have a question for you, Kaitlan. Is that employee still employed? Are you really concerned about veterans? So, if we don't want to talk about veterans now, and you want to talk about everything else, I'd like to hear from CNN, as the Veteran Cabinet Secretary, why CNN seems to have a problem with veterans? K. COLLINS: Well, Mr. Secretary, respectfully, my question was about-- D. COLLINS: No, answer my question, Kaitlan. K. COLLINS: --whether or not you, as a member of the Cabinet use this. D. COLLINS: Answer my question, Kaitlan. K. COLLINS: And respectfully, I'm conducting the investigation. And I do have a lot of questions for you, on Veterans Affairs. But I don't think it would be unwarranted to ask-- D. COLLINS: No, Kaitlan, what you want to do is you want to talk about a subject-- K. COLLINS: --if you as a member of the Cabinet-- D. COLLINS: What you want to do is talk about a subject that I have already answered. And if you want to continue this, like this, that's fine. But there are V.A. employees, who are working very hard. There are veterans who get their care from the V.A., and they get their benefits from the V.A. And it does mean no good to speculate on something that I've already asked and answered. So I've asked and answered your question. Why don't you answer mine? Are you still in -- is this person still employed, who said they were going to nail one of my veterans, who you had to do a $5 million award from a jury-- K. COLLINS: Sir-- D. COLLINS: --because of defamation, and then you settled the case? Answer my question. K. COLLINS: Respectfully, sir, I'm asking the questions here – D. COLLINS: No, I am right now. K.COLLINS: -- and I have no involvement in what you're referencing there. (…)