Friday’s Final Word

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Everybody’s tabbing for the weekend ...

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Ed: Winsome Earle-Sears may not win this election, but that non-reaction from Spanberger is likely to stick for a very long time. 

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Nellie Bowles at The Free Press: Here is CNN in 2019: “Democrats Want to Offer Health Care to Undocumented Immigrants. Here’s What That Means.” And now, in 2025, a very important fact check: “Fact Check: Trump Falsely Claims Democrats Want to Give Free Health Care to ‘Illegal Aliens’ in Government Shutdown Battle.” CNN is threading the needle to say that Dems aren’t asking for free healthcare for migrants in this particular bill, but it gets muddy around state budgets, with states saying they pay for this healthcare only with local dollars, but feds saying that’s not true. Then there’s something with Alien Medicaid eligibility. I truly can’t parse it. This is like the economy: Call me when there’s an answer here. Good interview with Jake Tapper pushing Hakeem Jeffries on it; now that I’m a mainstream media mogul, I celebrate Mr. Tapper, my fellow mainstream media mogul. See you on the Cape!

NBC News jumped into the fray with “GOP Misleads with Claim That Democrats Shut Down to Give Health Care to ‘Illegal Immigrants.’ ” Now, a 2023 NBC report goes into how 25 percent of all patients in New York City public hospitals are, in fact, migrants, and that this is a huge funding issue. But again, hard to parse.

Ed: The Protection Racket Media wants everyone to believe that the world began on January 20, 2025. Democrats have been advocating for publicly funded health care for illegals for at least the last ten years. They want that funding restored after the One Big Beautiful Bill eliminated most of it. The receipts are there if reporters bother to look; Bowles is one of the few to do so. 

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Ed: This is actually a pretty good discussion on the situation in Gaza. Clinton has always been better on Israel than most Democrats, and Rice is always solid. What strikes me most, though, is O'Donnell's expressed skepticism about a "two-state solution" as she's framing this, along with the frank reference to Iran's backing of Hamas. And Clinton's answer on the "two-state solution" is also good, as well as a far cry from John Kerry's insistence in the Biden Regency that it was the only path to peace. What's going on at CBS? Oh ...

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Mediaite: Bari Weiss, the newly appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News, emailed staff on Friday, asking each employee to submit a memo by the end of Tuesday describing how they spend their working hours, urging them to “please be blunt.”

“I want to understand how you spend your working hours,” she wrote, “and, ideally, what you’ve made (or are making) that you’re most proud of. I’m also interested in hearing your views on what’s working; what’s broken or substandard; and how we can be better.”

“Please be blunt,” she continued in the email obtained by Business Insider. “It will help me greatly,” adding that the memos will be held “in the strictest of confidence,” and used for one-on-one conversations with staff in the upcoming weeks.

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Ed: This is what's known as "firing a shot across the bow." And it also sounds familiar ...

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Ed: "What would you say ... you do here?" is never a question you want to be asked when new management comes into the organization. Maybe CBS News employees will need to reread the memo on TPS cover sheets, and also ensure they're wearing enough Free Press flair. 

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Ed: Hey, everyone's suddenly skeptical of a two-state solution! However, these guys are about 78 years too late. The Arabs tried this a couple of times -- 1948, 1967, 1973 too. Ask them how it worked out. Or just ask any random non-Hamas person in Gaza these days. 

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Axios: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Friday that more rescissions will be coming "in the days ahead," as the Trump administration announced it has begun its much anticipated layoffs of federal workers.

Why it matters: A fresh effort to claw back, or rescind, congressionally approved spending could threaten the little progress made toward reopening the government. ...

  • "To their credit, the White House has now for ten days held off doing anything in hopes that enough Senate Democrats would come to their senses and do the right thing and fund the government," Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Friday.
  • "Now that we're getting where people are going to start missing paychecks, this gets real," Thune added.

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    Ed: Finally, Democrat constituencies will start feeling the pain of a Schumer Shutdown. This should have happened a week earlier.  

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    Ed: Tom Lehrer once claimed that political satire died when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. This is why political satire will never truly die. And, by the way, McBride's sore because the GOP finally DID put on their "big boy pants." 

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    Kira Davis: A recent Rolling Stone article declared the “MANOSPHERE INFLUENCERS WHO BOOSTED TRUMP ARE NOW COOLING ON HIM.” The headline refers to podcasters like Joe Rogan and Theo Von who, lately, have expressed some discontent with Trump’s ICE operations and approach to illegal immigration.

    While the criticisms of Rogan and company may signal a ‘cooling off’ from Trump to an absurdly hopeful left wing media, it isn’t quite as significant as they so desperately desire.

    The immaturely monikered “manosphere” podcasters were never Trump fans to begin with. Joe Rogan built his entire brand on being curious and unabashedly libertarian. When he brought Trump into the podcasting universe, it was because he was genuinely curious about the man. When he announced his support for Trump’s campaign, it wasn’t because he had suddenly become a MAGA man. It was because he saw the danger the other side of the electoral equation posed, and he knew there was only one way out.

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    Now that danger has passed, and there is no more need to support any presidential candidate. The “manosphere” can return to their previous positions as purveyors of jokes and curiosity, and that is just what they are doing.

    Ed: The writers at Rolling Stone have as much credibility in covering the manosphere as they did covering Greek life at the University of Virginia. 

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    Ed: David wrote about this earlier too, but it's worth a mention here. Ms. Machado understands -- even if the Nobel committee doesn't -- that Trump's pressure on Maduro makes her work achievable. Joe Biden was too interested in appeasing left-wing and socialist dictators like Maduro. 

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    Free Beacon: Paramount’s decision to appoint Weiss as CBS editor in chief, and to merge with Skydance, marks "a dark day in the halls of CBS News, where the portraits of television news pioneers once hung," Rather wrote on his Substack. The former CBS anchor claimed that the network is "no longer independent" and bowed to the Trump administration to secure federal approval for the merger.

    Rather described Weiss as "one of the most polarizing figures in today’s American media landscape," accusing the Free Press founder of "giving the fictitious illusion of fair and balanced coverage." He wrote that "Weiss is unabashedly anti-woke, anti-DEI and pro-Israel, though she calls herself a ‘politically homeless’ moderate."

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    While Rather now portrays himself as a defender of journalistic integrity, CBS ousted him in 2006 after he broadcast a fabricated report questioning Bush’s military service records. The segment, which aired weeks before the 2004 presidential election, relied on documents that CBS could not authenticate and were revealed to be forgeries. CBS later retracted the story.

    Ed: Rather seems unaware that being "anti-woke, anti-DEI, and pro-Israel" actually are moderate positions. Of course, he's still unaware that "fake but accurate" is not a defense of fabulism, too. 

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    Left-wing violence is exploding with copycats appearing everywhere. It is the greatest threat to our country today, targeting people for simply speaking the truth.

    Let me be absolutely clear: We will not be silenced. We will not back down. We will not break. You lit a fire that cannot be put out.

    Charlie Kirk taught us to go on offense. That is exactly what we will do. We will work harder, speak louder, and grow stronger.

    We will continue to move TPUSA’s mission forward. For Charlie.

    Ed: Glad to hear that Benny's safe and the DoJ is handling this properly. I've been in that position, and the FBI and DoJ handled that properly as well. 

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