US-Iran conflict hands China’s Xi upper hand ahead of Trump meeting: Experts abcnews.com
from news.google.com
Monday’s edition of Amanpour & Co., airing on PBS (and CNN International) showcased eponymous host Christiane Amanpour assenting to the radical view of her guest, Yale University professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Also ahead, “White Supremacy in Donald Trump’s White House.” Princeton Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor speaks to Michel Martin about Trump’s war on DEI.
The above shows the host quoting a featured article by her guest. But Amanpour was also comfortable straight-up saying Trump’s White House was a “white supremacist” house.
AMANPOUR: Since the start of his second term, President Trump has signed a number of executive orders targeting DEI policies, uttered rhetoric deemed racist at immigrants and is generally eroding the, quote, “melting pot identity” the U.S. once prided itself on. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is a Princeton professor of African American studies and she’s the co-founder of the black politics and culture magazine Hammer & Hope. In her recent piece, she describes a white supremacy in Donald Trump’s White House and joins Michel Martin to discuss the rollback of civil rights.
Before the U.S. and Israel launched their joint attacks on Iran 25 days ago, many Iranians said they would welcome foreign intervention if it meant the end of the Islamic Republic. The regime, in power for 47 years, had just crushed a huge wave of anti-government demonstrations, with President Trump claiming more than 30,000 were killed and vowing to come to the rescue of the protesters.
Now, two Iranians — one inside and one outside the country — tell CBS News the feeling of optimism has shifted markedly after more than three weeks of war.
In Colorado, two ballot initiatives have been approved that both deal with transgenderism. One measure would prevent physicians from performing surgeries on children to change the appearance of their gender. A second measure would prevent boys presenting as girls from participating in female sports.
The Colorado Times Recorder demonstrates Progressive media agit prop with its headline “How Christian-Right Activists Got Anti-Trans Initiatives on Colorado’s Ballot.” The headline vilifies opposition with a negative term (one this same media helped vilify), “Christian right” and stigmatizes being opposed to surgically transitioning children and allowing boys to participate in girls’ sports.
From Ballotpedia:
Initiative 109
The first measure that Colorado voters will decide on — Initiative 109 — would require school- and association-sponsored athletic teams to be classified in one of three categories based on sex: (1) males/men/boys, (2) females/women/girls, or (3) coeducational or mixed. Teams designated for females, women, or girls would not be open to male students or participants. Teams designated for males, men, or boys would not be open to female students or participants unless no corresponding female team is offered for that sport. The measure would not limit participation in teams designated as coeducational or mixed.
Initiative 110
The other measure on the General Election ballot in November — Initiative 110 — would prohibit healthcare professionals from performing surgeries on minors “for the purpose of altering biological sex characteristics,” as well as prohibit state and federal funds, Medicaid reimbursements, or insurance coverage from being used to pay for such surgeries. The phrase altering biological sex characteristics would be defined as “treatment in response to a minor’s perception of sex or gender” and would exclude treatment for medically verifiable disorders of sex development or acquired physical or chemical abnormalities and male circumcision.
How Christian-Right Activists Got Anti-Trans Initiatives on Colorado’s Ballot Colorado Times Recorder
from news.google.com
Last week, a set of anti-trans initiatives was approved for Colorado’s 2026 ballot. The Colorado Times Recorder has been tracking these initiatives, and the anti-LGBTQ activist group Protect Kids Colorado that has pushed them with help from conservative politicians and religious ministries, for over two years. Here’s all the news you might have missed.
By Jamie O’Rourke, Aug. 22, 2023
“I’ve been working with Erin [Lee] for the last year or so on that documentary she mentioned,” former state senator Kevin Lundberg said. “And I want to assure you and all your viewers that she and her husband, John, are the real deal. God is really using them to spread the word on what’s happening.”
Lee and Lundberg would go on to become founding members of Protect Kids Colorado.
By Sean Beedle, Feb. 21, 2024
Relegated to minority status in the Colorado legislature, Republicans are turning to ballot initiatives in an attempt to pass laws targeting transgender people.
By Jamie O’Rourke, May 20, 2024
“A lot of children now are identifying as a cat or dog or an animal,” said Rich Guggenheim, a member of the anti-LGBTQ coalition Protect Kids Colorado, in a radio interview. “And this is part of the furry movement. And so kids are going to school. And in some schools across the country, we’re hearing stories where kids are using litterboxes and doing their bathroom duties like they would if they’re a cat or a dog.” His statement effectively rehashed stale, debunked right-wing talking points from 2022.
By Jamie O’Rourke, Aug. 5, 2024
“Well, we didn’t quite make it to the ballot with this petition effort … but I echo everything my friends at [Gays Against Groomers] said!” proponent Erin Lee posted to X shortly after. “We educated, we inspired, we built a grassroots Army, we brought people together… And we got more than 1/2 the required signatures with less than 1/2 the timeline!”
I know you’re going to be shocked at this, but CNN was just forced to admit that Trump was right. Again.
After spending most of the day yesterday claiming that President Trump was lying when he said Iran reached out to initiate talks on Sunday night, now they’ve just gone on the air to reverse that story.
See here:
BREAKING: CNN just confirmed that their own reporting is absolute HORSESHlT after they spent nearly the entire day yesterday accusing Trump of lying about Iran talks.
“We’re now learning from a senior Iranian source that there has been an outreach between the U.S. and Iran.” pic.twitter.com/AX8XkmQxvl
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) March 24, 2026
Longer clip here:
🚨 LMFAO! CNN just had to GO BACK on their claims President Trump lied about holding negotiations with Iran
“We’re now learning from a senior Iranian source that there HAS been an outreach between the US and Iran.”
Oh, so an “Iranian source” is what CNN needs to verify what the… pic.twitter.com/92zgNwVL7V
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 24, 2026
The U.S. media instinctively trust Iran, instead of their own country’s president, Co-Host Jesse Watters said on Fox News Channel’s “The Five” on Monday.
Watters said he saw the reports earlier in the day after returning from “a news blackout”:
“And, I get back and I see that Trump’s announced he’s negotiating with the Iranians and the Iranians say, ‘No, we’re not.’”
“And, the U.S. media believes the Iranians. Just like that,” Watters said.
A Georgia woman is facing murder and drug charges after her born-alive baby died shortly after she used illegally obtained drugs in an attempt to end her pregnancy.
Corporate media want Americans to believe that the charges levied against Alexia Zantail Moore are unprecedented, unfair, and all about abortion, since Moore allegedly tried to abort her baby with mail-order misoprostol, a drug often used in combination with mifepristone to initiate chemical abortions.
CNN host Kasie Hunt asked Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen Monday whether he believes Iranian officials over President Donald Trump.
Trump said talks had started between the United States and Iran. Iran, however, denied any such negotiations have taken place. During a discussion on “The Arena,” Hunt asked Van Hollen whether he trusts Iranian officials over the president.
“So you believe the Iranian officials over the president of the United States?” Hunt asked.
Trump casts a mail-in ballot in Florida special election as he tries to sharply limit absentee voting AppleValleyNewsNow.com
from news.google.com
Record-long security lines are snarling airports nationwide as the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown drags into its sixth week, and President Trump says reinforcements are on the way.
With TSA short-staffed after a surge of callouts, the White House plans to deploy ICE agents to 14 airports to help keep lines moving and reduce bottlenecks, according to administration officials. The move comes as travelers report arriving hours early just to have a shot at making flights.
MS NOW, formerly known as MSNBC, is backing off the charade of presenting ‘straight news’ and is doubling down on the anti-Trump programming that brings them eyeballs and ratings.
Morning Joe is being cut by an hour, and other supposed ‘news’ shows are being ditched to make room for what they are hoping will increase their market share.
CNN hasn’t exactly had a banner month. It started with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt spanking CNN’s Kaitlin Collins about the dignified transfer of our brave service members who died in Operation Epic Fury, and only went downhill from there.
Just a few days later, the network repeatedly shared the false news that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was the target of homemade IEDs that were thrown into a crowd of anti-Islam protesters near Gracie Mansion. They started by portraying the alleged bombers, Ibrahim Kayumi and Emir Balat, as “two Pennsylvania teenagers” who “crossed into New York City … for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather.” The post went on to say the pair’s lives “would drastically change” after they were “arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest.” CNN later deleted that post, claiming it “failed to reflect the gravity of the incident, thereby breaching the editorial standards” of the network. That post implied Mamdani was the target of the attacks, too.
Election experts from around the country are sounding alarms that the SAVE Act (full name: SAVE Trump’s Ass From The Epstein Files Act) would cause mayhem and set up the elections and the country for failure. In large part, this is because many of the act’s requirements are unfunded.
The so-called SAVE America Act, which President Donald Trump is relentlessly pushing, would create chaos for state and local elections administrators by immediately imposing several new requirements without adding funding, former North Carolina elections chief Karen Brinson Bell said on a press call Tuesday organized by Washington U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.
“I cannot emphasize enough the Herculean effort that the SAVE America Act would present for election officials across this country,” Brinson Bell, who now advises election officials as a co-founder of the group Advance Elections, said. “Please do not set our country or these public servants up for failure. Bring us to the table. Develop this legislation properly and provide adequate funding and resources so we can all succeed.”
CBS Evening News isn’t doing so well under the new management at Paramount or the commissar they installed to make sure nothing woke gets broadcast. Nielsen reports that ratings are down.
Viewership for the program has once again dropped below 4 million, a critical demarcation point that previously spurred alarm at the Paramount Skydance news division.
The post CBS Evening News viewership slips under 4 million, and they’re all old appeared first on Boing Boing.
from boingboing.net
“The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr warned that US broadcast networks could face consequences, including the loss of their licenses, if they continue airing what he described as “hoaxes and news distortions” related to coverage of the ongoing conflict involving Iran.
Carr made the comments in a post responding to a statement from President Donald Trump lambasting media reporting about alleged damage to US tanker aircraft in Saudi Arabia.
In his post, Carr said broadcasters that “are running hoaxes and news distortions – also known as the fake news – have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.”
The concept of freedom of the press isn’t ruined by criticism of the press. But when liberal TV hosts roll out their lectures, they sound a little like the president they routinely attack. Any criticism of their work must be Fake News.
MS NOW host Ana Cabrera expressed indignation on March 16 after FCC chairman Brendan Carr tweeted that broadcast stations should watch what they’re airing on the war in Iran: “Freedom of the press has been such a huge, huge underpinning of the democracy in this country, right? In order to hold people in power accountable to be that government watchdog.” But Carr is “squashing” press freedom with a simple tweet.
NPR media reporter David Folkenflik lamented Carr wanted to “get in the weeds of what’s said,” but allowed that “you can argue there are good principles involved about wanting to make sure certain kinds of coverage is fair to all sides” – yet the government shouldn’t interfere.
MS NOW host Ana Cabrera freaked out at Brendan Carr tweets, arguing press freedom is a huge underpinning of democracy. He’s quashing it! NPR’s David Folkenflik says Carr’s FCC wants to “get in the weeds of what’s said.” Yes! Much of what they say would fit the weeds metaphor. pic.twitter.com/7GATuVWf8X
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) March 17, 2026
Israel’s defense minister said Wednesday that the country would escalate its war against Iran, and its parallel assault on the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, clearly signaling an escalation of the conflict in the heart of the Middle East.
“The intensity of attacks in Iran is increasing. We are in the midst of achieving a decisive outcome,” Katz said in his video message, shared on social media.
“Israel’s policy is clear and unequivocal: no one in Iran has immunity, and all are targeted. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have authorized the IDF to neutralize any senior Iranian official for whom an intelligence and operational opportunity arises, without the need for additional approval. We will continue to intercept and hunt them all,” he said.
“Significant surprises are also expected throughout today across all arenas, which will escalate the war we are conducting against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
The human cost of Israel and America’s air campaign on Iran is mounting, nowhere more painfully felt than in the children’s wards of its hospitals.
In the intensive care unit of one, four-year-old Anita lies in a coma with severe head injuries a few days after being pulled out of the rubble of her home when it was destroyed in an air strike.
Her mother Zeiba was in torment, clutching her tiny hand and begging her to wake up. Doctors say she almost certainly never will.
Far-left podcast host Joy Reid argued that the United States is only “marginally better” than Iran, even after the brutal Islamic regime recently slaughtered tens of thousands of protesting citizens.
During the January anti-regime protests, thousands of Iranians were killed by their own government.
Estimates of the number killed vary substantially, hampered by the ongoing internet shutdown.
The Iranian government has acknowledged more than 3,000 dead.
However, the US-based organisation HRANA (Human Rights Activists News Agency), whose figures have been reliable during previous crackdowns, says it has verified more than 6,000 dead and has more than 17,000 more recorded deaths under investigation, giving a possible total of about 22,000.
Joe Kent, who led the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned Tuesday, saying he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.”
“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent wrote in his resignation letter to Mr. Trump.
Kent accused high-ranking Israeli officials and some in the media of waging a “misinformation campaign” that was “used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory.”
“This was a lie,” he said, urging Mr. Trump to “reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for.”
In a post on X, Gabbard appeared to respond to Kent’s letter, saying the president “is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat.”
ABC News’ Wednesday report on an alleged Iranian drone threat to California did not initially include that the information was “unverified.”
“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran,” ABC News reported the late February alert stated.
However, the outlet noted in an updated version of the article on Thursday — which included an editor’s note — that the full alert reportedly included the word “unverified” between “acquired” and “information.”
On the left is the way ABC (or their source) reported the FBI alert.
On the right is the actual FBI alert that went to JTFF partners.
You will notice the word left out —“Unverified.” https://t.co/zSBHObisAI pic.twitter.com/XEZPeNKmDA
— Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) March 12, 2026
European Union ministers and leaders pushed back on ideas to protect the strait, including expanding a maritime operation already in place in the Red Sea.
from www.nytimes.com
Trump Administration Presses Back on Media Determination to Propagate a Defeatist Narrative
Or at least a quagmire narrative.
Axios: FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over Iran war coverage, a day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth singled out CNN and rooted for a friendlier owner (Axios).
Abortion polling is notoriously deceptive and known to strategically skew and misrepresent public opinion to favor abortion activists’ radical agendas. Pew Research Center’s latest survey appears to be no different.
In its 2026 American Trends Panel analysis, Pew uses its January 2026 survey of more than 8,500 U.S. adults to assert that a majority of Americans, 60 percent, “continue to say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.”
Pew suggests that number means states’ attempts to use the post-Dobbs v. Jackson era to outlaw or limit abortion are unpopular and out of touch. The research center’s write-up of its newly retrieved data even notes, in bold, that “In recent years, the public has become more likely to say obtaining an abortion in their area would be difficult.”
National Public Radio is still in hot pursuit of the supposed sins of GOP Islamophobia, while anti-semitism from Muslim Democrats is never news. NPR made not just one but two stories out of Barbara Sprunt’s reporting, which consisted of her acting horrified about Republicans saying mean things about Islam without being punished.
The first story aired March 13 on All Things Considered: “Unlike past eras, anti-Muslim GOP rhetoric draws little pushback from party leaders.” Yes, the good old days when Republican leadership called out offensive comments by Republicans – and got no credit for it from the elitist media, which still called every Republican presidential candidate a racist.
AILSA CHANG, HOST: In recent days, several Republican lawmakers have drawn condemnation for using anti-Muslim rhetoric. It’s not the first time that the party has had to confront hateful language from within its own ranks, but unlike in past political eras, these comments have faced little pushback from Republican leaders. NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt joins us now….let’s start with this tweet from Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles. This was from earlier this week, right? He posted, quote, “Muslims don’t belong in American society.”
NPR doesn’t care if antisemitic comments from Democrats like Rep. Ilhan Omar receive “little pushback from Democrat leaders.” Being Muslim means you’re “marginalized,” so you’re in a different rule book. Sprunt went on to say:
SPRUNT: ….There’s been a lot of posts about Sharia Law. There’s a Sharia-free America Caucus that now has 50 Republican members. Sharia refers to rules devout Muslims follow in life, like praying five times a day, avoiding pork. It’s a religious framework, not a plan to replace the Constitution. And if you listen to the rest of what Johnson said, he added that this isn’t about Muslims as people. But critics say by framing this answer around Sharia law, it gives cover for bigoted language.
On March 7, a throng of left-wing counter protestors met with a small right-wing protest outside Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D). From within the crowd, 18-year-old Emir Balat threw a homemade bomb and yelled “Allahu akbar.” Balat and his friend Ibrahim Kayumi were arrested for the attack, and law enforcement later determined that the two were ISIS sympathizers.
All of the above information was publicly available by the afternoon of March 7. By 2:00 p.m. ET, several videos of Balat throwing the bomb were already circulating on social media, in which he could clearly be heard yelling the well-known Islamist slogan.
Despite all of that information being readily available, The New York Times’s first headline about the incident read: “Homemade Bomb Thrown at Protest Near N.Y.C. Mayor’s House, Police Say” — a summary so vague that it almost seemed to pin the bomb-throwing on the right-wing protestors.
Since February 14, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been largely shut down after funding lapsed because Democrats demanded changes to President Trump’s deportation policies, leaving government workers such as TSA agents to work without pay and turn to food banks.
A Media Research Center study found that, since the start of the DHS shutdown, only eight percent – or 125 seconds – of the 26 minutes and 22 seconds on the shutdown across the flagship evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC have brought up the fact that the long lines at airports are because of the left’s obstructionism.
MRC analysts examined every mention of the DHS shutdowns and its effects (mainly at America’s airports) by journalists, starting on February 14 on ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News and tallied both the total coverage and allusions to Democratic demands to reopen DHS.
For decades, my colleagues and I have been up against an immense machine— a wildy rich, axis of media, entertainment, and cultural power that made dissent a form of professional suicide. A form of murder – the systematic killing of a person’s good name, reputation, and livelihood.
And when we pointed out the sharia-compliant media ecosystem that enabled it, the punishment only intensified. We were smeared, deplatformed, shadow-banned, and algorithmically buried—until many of us were effectively disappeared from the public square, leaving the megaphone almost entirely in the hands of far-left demons.
Liel Leibovitz of Tablet looked at the New York Times’ piece on the terror attack outside of Mamdani’s residence titled “At 13, He Was Selling Sneakers. At 18, He’s Facing Terror Charges.” Leibovitz: This is not a bug. It’s a feature. We can mock it all we want, writing cutesy headlines like “at 20, he was an aspiring Viennese painter; at 56, he was facing the Allies in a bunker in Berlin.” But the truth is deeper and more troubling. What we’re seeing here is the result of the left’s near-total command of everything we’re allowed to know, say, and think…. When a perfect machine that includes the Democrat party, mainstream media, intelligence agencies, Big Tech, and corporate America comes together and runs an intel operation on you, this is what reality starts to look like. And it’s not something to be merely laughed at; it’s something to be crushed, which means making very significant changes to how you live your life, who you trust, and what you value (Liebovitz).
The New York Times has caught a lot of justified flak the last few days for how softly it has framed its profiles of the Islamic perpetrator of an anti-Jewish attack on a Michigan synagogue. “The Michigan Synagogue Attacker Was a Quiet Restaurant Worker.” At least Sunday’s print headline was better: “Recalling Attacker’s Last Days Before Driving Into Synagogue.”
Critics faulted the terrorist-sympathetic framing of the story, like another headline: “Family Members of Michigan Synagogue Attacker Died in Airstrike in Lebanon.” The story initially included insistence from sources that members of the man’s family killed in an Israeli air strike there were not members of Hezbollah.
As confirmation of the man’s Hezbollah links emerged, that denial was quietly excised.
