Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters Friday that they should replace their fake news headlines about the war with Iran with honest ones – and provided examples. “I used to be in that business and I know everything is written intentionally,” Hegseth said, taking on the unjustifiably negative spin of legacy media headlines used to mislead the public. “Allow me to make a few suggestions,” Hegseth told the reporters: “For example, a banner or a headline: ‘Mideast War Intensifies.’ Splashing on the screen the last couple of days, alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit because that’s what they do. “What should the banner read, instead? “How about: ‘Iran Increasingly Desperate’ – because they are. They know it and so do you, if it can be admitted.”   .@SECWAR JUST LIT UP THE FAKE NEWS: pic.twitter.com/oAnTZbOuaC — DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) March 13, 2026   “Or more fake news from CNN, [which] reports ‘the Trump Administration underestimated the war’s impact on the Strait of Hormus,’” Hegseth said, declaring the claim “Patently ridiculous, of course.” “CNN doesn’t think we’ve thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report,” he explained, continuing on: “Another example of a fake headline that I saw yesterday: ‘War Widening.’ “Here’s a real headline for you for a patriotic press. How about: ‘Iran Shrinking, Going Underground.’ “You see, Iran’s leaders are hiding in bunkers and moving into civilian areas.” “The only think that is widening is our advantage. Not to mention, our Gulf partners stepping up even more now, going on the offensive,” Sec. Hegseth noted.

Clay Waters just demonstrated for us how PBS and reporters like Minnesota-based Fred de Sam Lazaro sound like lobbyists for illegal immigrants. This is so-called "public" broadcasting, which until recently was subsidized by American taxpayers. The same thing is happening at National “Public” Radio. On Thursday’s Morning Edition, they aired a story under the online headline “Blue cities in red states debate over how to respond to efforts to resist ICE.” Democrats want to resist any attempt to deport people, and that’s the only people Austin-based reporter Mose Buchele talked to for this report. NPR host Steve Inskeep introduced it: “In many Republican-led states, police officers are required to cooperate with federal immigration agents. [Horrors!] And that leaves liberal cities in those conservative states debating how to respond when they don't want to spend time on immigration enforcement.” In other words, they don’t want any immigration enforcement. A state law (that the Left hates) prohibits police departments from telling officers they cannot contact federal immigration agents. The reporter explained: MOSE BUCHELE:  In Texas, state police are empowered to arrest suspected unauthorized immigrants. Many counties partner with ICE to get grants and funding. Those agreements will become mandatory for all counties by the end of the year. And [Austin police chief Lisa] Davis said Texas cities cannot prevent local officers from calling ICE if they see fit. LISA DAVIS: There is a rule of law that I have to follow as the chief of police here in the state of Texas. But what we can do... (BOOING) Leftists booing the "rule of law"? It depends on what the meaning of the "rule of law" is, apparently. Davis ends up sounding like the most right-leaning speaker in the piece.  BUCHELE: It was a tense evening. On one side, local officials explaining that breaking state law could lead to cuts to funding or them getting removed from office, on the other side, many in the audience calling for resistance, no matter the cost. Robert Saulter is a criminal defense lawyer who was one of the most vocal that night. ROBERT SAULTER: There is nothing that prevents this police chief, these city council members from refusing to cooperate with the state. BUCHELE: Heated public debates like this have also erupted in San Antonio, Dallas and Houston. Democratic cities in Tennessee, Georgia and Florida are also seeing locals push back against red state laws that mandate ICE-police partnerships. Later, NPR explains that Davis can't tell her officers not to contact ICE, but she can encourage "higher-ups" to release illegal immigrants before ICE arrives. BUCHELE: Officers can still contact ICE. But the new rules will give police higher-ups a say in whether they can hold people until ICE arrives to arrest them. DAVIS: And I can tell you, the priority is not waiting for ICE to respond on a civil detainer. BUCHELE: Officials think it's a way to thread the needle between local priorities [amnesty/sanctuary] and state law. But after the event, immigrant advocate Carmen Zuvieta said it won't help people who fear deportation feel any better about calling the police for help. CARMEN ZUVIETA: (Speaking Spanish). BUCHELE: "To gain confidence, you have to earn it. And nothing they're doing is giving us confidence," she said. For NPR News, I'm Mose Buchele in Austin. That ending is a chef-kiss of anti-ICE bias -- the dissatisfied leftists get to chew out the local cops in Spanish, and no one cringes at the notion that immigration policy is being run by people who don't feel the need to speak English. No one identifies leftists as leftists. They get generically positive descriptions like "immigrant advocate." It turns out Zuvieta is with the "Austin Sanctuary Network" -- and this meeting didn't happen this week! Buchele reported this story for Austin NPR station KUT on February 6.  Nowhere in this entire story on leftists pressuring the blue-city cops is any quote or argument from a Republican, from Gov. Greg Abbott on down. Their principle: Who needs both sides of the public on a "public" radio show?  

The hits just kept coming for CNN this week. Amid criticism of the network’s biased reporting from Iran, bias about the conflict, and how they got access to the country, two high-ranking CNN officials were caught at the Iranian Embassy in London attending a celebration for the founding of the Islamic regime. Additionally, the daytime edition of CNN News Central on Thursday aired four-uninterrupted minutes of Iranian state television delivering a purported written statement from the latest ayatollah, who’s in a coma. On March 12, the U.K.-based newspaper The Telegraph published an article about the unfolding scandal engulfing Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government where his Foreign Ministry attended a February 12 celebration at the Iranian Embassy to mark the founding of the Islamic Republic. The party was happening at the same time they were slaughtering thousands of their own citizens in the streets. The newspaper reported: Foreign Office staff attended a party at the Iranian embassy to celebrate the Islamic revolution just weeks after the regime massacred thousands of its own people. As smartly dressed guests, including UK civil servants, gathered at the London event, embassy officials hailed Iran’s “remarkable accomplishments” in spite of “unjust” Western sanctions. Video footage shows attendees standing in silence for a rendition of Iran’s national anthem. On the same day as the event, Feb 12, the US-based group Human Rights Activists News Agency announced that at least 7,000 people had been killed in Iran, including 219 children. Anti-regime campaigners previously said up to 30,000 protesters may have been murdered. In one of the images captured by Iranian state media (pictured above), Iran Press and shared by The Telegraph, CNN London bureau chief Andrew Roy and CNN chief global affairs correspondent Matthew Chance can be seen meeting and shaking hands with Iran's Ambassador to the U.K., Seyed Ali Mousavi. The CNN officials didn’t appear to be attending to event as journalists. No camera crew are visible and neither was there any form of recording equipment. No voice recorders. No note pads. No visible press credentials that would show they were there for work. As of the publication of this piece (March 13, 2026), Chance had not filed any report about it. According to his profile page on the CNN website, the only things he reported on in February were about Ukraine and Russia. A SnapStream search of on-air reports from Matthew Chance confirmed this.     Neither Roy nor Chance had even posted on X about attending the regime party. As of the publication of this piece, CNN was the only American outlet to be granted permission by the regime to operate inside country during the current conflict. Senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen was their man on the ground. It’s unclear if the connects made during the Embassy celebration played a role in CNN scoring permission. In a statement to NewsBusters, a CNN spokesperson defended Roy and Chance attending the party for the regime, saying: “Journalists attend different functions as part of normal work as an opportunity to speak with government officials whom they cover. The individuals photographed were there briefly for that reason and joined journalists from several different news outlets at this event.” These are the questions we asked: -Why was CNN attending an Iranian Embassy event to celebrate the creation of the Iranian regime that has murdered thousands of its own people? -If they were there to cover it, why was no report apparently filed? -Did Roy or Chance press the ambassador on the reports of slaughtered civilians? -Did their connections with the Embassy play a role in CNN getting permission to operate in the country? Things weren’t looking particularly good for CNN. Not only did their journalists attend a party for the regime, but part of Thursday’s CNN News Central ran four-uninterrupted minutes of Iranian state television announcing the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei and reading a purported statement written by him.   IRGCNN Yesterday, CNN aired ran four-uninterrupted minutes of Iranian state television announcing the new supreme leader and reading a purported statement written by him. We later found out he's been in a coma. pic.twitter.com/DOn9eELkIT — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) March 13, 2026   Only later did the world find out that Mojtaba was actually comatose and missing a leg following an airstrike. “Due to his condition, he does not know of the ongoing war, the death of his family members, including his wife and son and of his own election as Supreme leader, the source said,” reported the U.K.-based Daily Mail. On sharing Iranian state TV, a CNN spokesperson told NewsBusters: “The world is watching with anticipation which direction this war will take. Purported remarks from Iran’s new Supreme Leader are a critical component in helping audiences understand where this conflict is heading and were aired for their obvious news value.”

Americans’ personal savings rate jumped to its highest level in six months in January, as seasonally-adjusted tax expenditures dropped, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported Friday. The BEA report for January 2026 was originally scheduled for February 26, 2026, was rescheduled until Friday due to the record-long government shutdown, spanning from October into November, caused by Congressional Democrats’ refusal to approve a continuing resolution to keep the government open by maintaining previous spending levels. At 4.5%, the personal savings rate in January rose from 4.0% in December, hitting the highest level since last July when it was also 4.5%. The savings rate is calculated by dividing Disposable Personal Income - which is income remaining (savings) after current taxes and expenditures – by total personal income. Total personal income increased 0.4% from the previous month, up from December’s 0.3% increase from November. The increase in personal income in January primarily reflected increases in compensation, personal dividend income, and personal current transfer receipts. Disposable Personal Income (DPI) increased 0.9%, up from December’s 0.3% gain. Adjusted for inflation, DPI rose 0.7% - up from 0.0% in December and the largest increase since March of 2025. Consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the U.S. economy, rose 0.4% in January, matching the previous month’s increase. Monthly taxes declined a seasonally-adjusted 3.2% from December to January. The Social Security Fairness Act signed by President Donald Trump last July went into effect in January, contributing to the decline. BEA’s Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) price index, which factors takes into account higher the cost of goods and services and is used as a measure of inflation, increased 0.3% in January after rising 0.4% in December. Excluding the volatile food and energy sectors, the so-called “core” PCE index advanced 0.4%, the same as it did the prior month. The PCE index is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure used in determining interest rate changes in its pursuit of a target inflation rate of 2.0%. The January PCE index rose 2.8% from a year earlier, while the core number increased 3.1%.

Wednesday’s PBS News Hour offered some rare media coverage of one of President Trump’s legislative priorities, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, his popular voter ID bill based on the idea that ineligible ballots from non-citizens should not dilute the votes of American citizens, while holding every state to the same voter verification standards. The SAVE ACT, which has passed the House but faces a struggle in the Senate because of the filibuster, received the typical PBS treatment given to conservative legislation, with left-leaning, unlabeled “experts” offering a warped view. White House correspondent Liz Landers led the slanted coverage. Landers: If passed, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America, Act would transform voting in this country in two major ways. It would require all Americans to prove U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, and it would require all voters to show an I.D. when voting in person or by mail. Voters submitting absentee mail ballots would have to provide a photocopy of their I.D…. President Donald Trump: We don't want people that aren't citizens of our country voting. We don't want people that aren't studied, and we don't want people that can't love our country voting in our elections. So it's very simple. Liz Landers: But it's not that simple. By any definition, the number of ballots cast illegally and by noncitizens in America elections is incredibly small. David Becker, Executive Director, Center for Election Innovation and Research: We know our elections are more secure than ever. We know we have more protections and checks and balances against fraud than ever… Landers: A study by the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security found that, of the 49.5 million voter registrations that were checked for the 2024 election, about 10,000 cases were referred for additional investigation of noncitizenship. That's roughly 0.02 percent of names processed.... In 2024, PBS turned to Becker -- a former employee of the liberal group People for the American Way -- to "debunk" Fox host Greg Gutfeld. Then Landers selectively cited polling data. Landers: And Americans are not overly concerned about the chances of voter fraud. In our new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll out today, 66 percent of Americans are confident their state or local government will run fair elections in November, which is down from 76 percent in October 2024; 33 percent of adults believe the biggest threat to safe and secure elections is voter fraud. Republicans are much more concerned about this than Democrats. The bolded above sentence probably explains why Landers is poo-poohing voting concerns. PBS is stuffed with Democrats. We can bet there's not a Republican in the News Hour studio. Landers ignored other polls showing the popularity of the contents of the bill, including: proof of citizenship (75%), voter ID (81%), and states removing non-citizens from voter rolls (80%). She did allow a pithy clip from the White House. Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary: You need an I.D. to go and purchase alcohol. You need an I.D. to go to the library and check out a book. And so the president thinks you should have an I.D. to vote in our nation's elections. Landers offered melodramatic spin and liberal language like “disenfranchisement” to characterize something as basic as ensuring only citizens can vote. Millions "could" be denied the opportunity to vote. Landers: But requiring I.D. documents like passports and birth certificates could disenfranchise millions of people. As usual, the elitist press exaggerates the effect of so-called voting restrictions. Remember the 2021 Georgia state law, which among other things expanded voter I.D. requirements, and was smeared as a return to Jim Crow? Yet turnout actually increased for the 2022 mid-term elections. Landers continued: “About half of Americans don't have passports and many do not have a copy of their birth certificate. The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents.”  This was accompanied on screen by a close-up of the relevant Brennan Center post. Landers did not explain the Brennan Center is a leftist group headed by Michael Waldman, a former speechwriter for President Clinton, who recently trashed the SAVE Act as "a drive by President Trump and his administration to undermine the 2026 election. It is unprecedented, outlandish." PBS did not acknowledge that the registration requirements of the actual bill would only apply to newly registered voters. The act includes directives to states to establish alternative ways for applicants to establish their citizenship even if they don’t have the required documents (something in the interest of the states to do, if only to retain voting power). It accommodates the disabled or those who have changed their name. As usual, PBS loaded up on arguments and experts from the Left while it claims to serve the entire public.  A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS News Hour 3/11/26 7:30:22 p.m. (ET) Geoff Bennett: President Trump vowed this week not to sign any bills into law until a sweeping new voting bill is passed. Our White House correspondent, Liz Landers, takes a closer look at its prospects. Liz Landers: Early Sunday morning, hours after returning from Delaware, where he took part in the solemn observance of the return of remains of six U.S. soldiers killed, President Trump posted about the SAVE America Act. Quote: "It supersedes everything else," he wrote, and -- quote -- "must go to the front of the line. I as president will not sign other bills until this is passed." President Donald Trump: And, perhaps most importantly, I'm asking you to approve the SAVE America Act. (Cheering) Liz Landers: If passed, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America, Act would transform voting in this country in two major ways. It would require all Americans to prove U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, and it would require all voters to show an I.D. when voting in person or by mail. Voters submitting absentee mail ballots would have to provide a photocopy of their I.D. The bill would also require states to frequently review voter rolls and remove any noncitizens. And it would mandate states share voter registration data with the federal government, which most states have refused to do, a move backed by several federal judges. President Donald Trump: We don't want people that aren't citizens of our country voting. We don't want people that aren't studied, and we don't want people that can't love our country voting in our elections. So it's very simple. Liz Landers: But it's not that simple. By any definition, the number of ballots cast illegally and by noncitizens in America elections is incredibly small. David Becker, Executive Director, Center for Election Innovation and Research: We know our elections are more secure than ever. We know we have more protections and checks and balances against fraud than ever. And we also know that this administration has gone out hunting for fraud with all of the tools of the federal government over the last year, and they have found virtually none. Liz Landers: A study by the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security found that, of the 49.5 million voter registrations that were checked for the 2024 election, about 10,000 cases were referred for additional investigation of noncitizenship. That's roughly 0.02 percent of names processed. In Georgia, a 2024 audit of its 8.2 million registered voters found only 20 noncitizens who had registered. Rick Hasen, UCLA School of Law: If you're a noncitizen and you sign under penalty of perjury that you are a citizen and you're eligible to vote, you're committing a felony which could render you not only deportable, but also get you jail time. And for what? For -- to have one vote. So it's really not the way that elections are stolen. Liz Landers: And Americans are not overly concerned about the chances of voter fraud. In our new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll out today, 66 percent of Americans are confident their state or local government will run fair elections in November, which is down from 76 percent in October 2024; 33 percent of adults believe the biggest threat to safe and secure elections is voter fraud. Republicans are much more concerned about this than Democrats. Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary: You need an I.D. to go and purchase alcohol. You need an I.D. to go to the library and check out a book. And so the president thinks you should have an I.D. to vote in our nation's elections. Liz Landers: But requiring I.D. documents like passports and birth certificates could disenfranchise millions of people. Rick Hasen: If you're poor, you're moving a lot, you're say a student who's gone away to college, you have changed your name because you have gotten married or for some other reasons, all of those people would have more difficulty obtaining these documents. Liz Landers: About half of Americans don't have passports and many do not have a copy of their birth certificate. The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents. And voting rights advocates say the SAVE America Act requirements could disproportionately affect older Americans and low-income voters, another concern, newly married voters. A 2023 Pew survey found that more than 80 percent of women and 5 percent of men change or hyphenate their names after marriage, meaning their passport, birth certificate and other documents may not align, requiring additional paperwork to register to vote. Tammy Patrick, National Association for Election Administrators: I don't think there's anyone that wants ineligible voters to participate in our democracy, full stop. But what we do want to make sure is everyone who is eligible doesn't have obstacles that they have to overcome in order to participate.