Who among us hasn’t come within a second or two of murdering someone else with a steak knife? My best friend in school, Bobby “The Blade” Simpson, used to throw shivs at the smaller kids in the music room. Did we need the authorities to step in when that happened? No, we did not. As MSNBC’s Joy Reid argued smartly on her show last night, pranks such as these were dealt with by our teachers — just as we all expected they would be. And if something went wrong? Well, that’s why we had substitutes.
In all honesty, I worry that this sort of helicopter policing is making us weak. Back in my day, the people who survived a good stabbing came out stronger for it. I learned a lot of lessons from my time in the ring: self-reliance, how to overcome fear, the importance of agility, the basics of military field dressing. And, given the turnover, I also learned how to make new friends.
Today, the free-range generation to which I belong is dying out — and, this time, it is not from the wounds inflicted by everyday teenage knife fights but because our politicians and activists simply cannot leave us be. From the time of the Colosseum, our civilization has had a tradition of lightly regulated, highly entertaining combat. Who are we, exactly, to think we know better?
Those government retirement systems are sitting on mountains of debt. There’s $144 billion in debt just in the five statewide systems, by the state’s conservative estimate, or $261 billion by a more realistic, independent estimate. They average only 40% of the funds needed to pay out retiree benefits long-term.
If you add in local pension debt, Illinois’ unfunded pension liability totals more than $200 billion by the state’s measure, and that amount grows every year. Another shock such as the Great Recession could cause the first pension fund to run out of money by 2039, according to actuarial analysis.
That amounts to a broken promise not only to retirees who are banking on having their pensions to support them, but also to the taxpayers who continue getting hit with higher taxes just to keep things from tanking.
Illinois politicians have enhanced benefits without funding them and pushed off the financial reckoning for decades. As a result, pension costs, which took up just 4% of the state’s budget in the 1990s, have increased by more than 500% during the past 20 years, growing to consume more than 25% of budgets in recent years – rapidly approaching 30%.
Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”
When Gerardo Serrano stopped in Eagle Pass, Texas, to snap some pictures of the U.S.-Mexico border, he thought the photos would be free. He paid with his vehicle.
In September 2015, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized the brand-new F-250 truck via civil forfeiture, which allows the government to take property from people merely suspected of committing a crime. Serrano's error: After agents pulled him over for the pictures, and after Serrano refused to surrender the password to his phone, they located five loose bullets in his vehicle (without a gun), and deemed them "munitions of war." He was detained for several hours and told to walk home.
For years, the government refused to properly adjudicate the matter. Not only was Serrano never charged with a crime, but CBP never filed a formal forfeiture complaint: It just took Serrano's property and sat on it while his pleas fell on deaf ears. He eventually shelled out $3,800 to challenge the move in federal court, and still heard nothing—until he filed a lawsuit against the agency for violation of due process.
At that point, CBP suddenly came around and returned the property. "The upshot is that Serrano lost his property for two years based on nothing more than a probable cause determination by CBP agents who were clearly irritated by his refusal to provide his iPhone password," wroteReason's Jacob Sullum last year. "Such delays are built into modern forfeiture procedures, which include an 'administrative' phase during which a property owner can plead for mercy from the same agency that took his stuff and would receive the proceeds from selling it."
On Monday the Supreme Court declined to hear his case. That demurral reinforces the position taken by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals: that the government does not violate someone's due process when they take their property without a hearing. Other circuits have ruled to the contrary.
"When the agents seized my truck, I couldn't believe it was happening to me," said Serrano in a statement. "And now I'm back in the Twilight Zone, thinking this can't be real. How can the courts just ignore this? And how can an ordinary person afford to wait years after the government takes their car?"
Serrano was given several options immediately following the seizure, from doing nothing to paying the vehicle's full market value to get it back. Noticeably absent from the list: a hearing. Given what happened today, that unfortunately won't change anytime soon.
The New York Times published “Gazans Are Dying of Starvation,” featuring a front-page photo of an 18-month-old, Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, depicted as a victim of severe malnutrition amid the Gaza conflict. The image, showing the emaciated child with a protruding spine, went viral and was widely interpreted as evidence of intentional starvation by Israel, with other major outlets like CNN, BBC, The Guardian, and Daily Mail using similar imagery to amplify the narrative. However, it turns out the featured child actually had pre-existing health problems including cerebral palsy which affect physical development. The Times admitted the error after others raised it, then buried a July 29 editor’s note stating, “After publication of the article, The Times learned from his doctor that Mohammed also had pre-existing health problems.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/world/middleeast/gaza-starvation.html
180. Sunday, June 22, 2025
MSNBC, CNN and other media falsely reported or implied that the Trump administration failed to notify any Democrats ahead of the Iran strike. MSNBC later corrected the story to reflect that the White House notified the top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer (D-NY) before the strike. The White House also said officials tried to reach the top Democrat in the House, Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), but that could not be reached until after the strike.
179. May-June 2025
Many news and medical media sites falsely reported that the CDC was recommending all travelers get a measles shots. In fact, the CDC did not recommend vaccination for people already vaccinated, for people who have had measles, and for people born prior to a certain date.
178. Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Headlined as an “exclusive” and based on anonymous sources, Nature Magazine falsely reported that the NIH was threatening thousands of global health projects by ceasing foreign awards to laboratories and hospitals outside the U.S.
A transcript of an interview with the reporter reveals that NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had repeatedly told the reporter that it was untrue that all foreign awards would be halted.
177. Tuesday, April 8, 2025
The New York Times reported on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s position on fluoride as if he is anti-science without noting that the Times’ own reported previously noted that fluoride may be linked to lower IQ scores in children. Additionally, many scientific studies and health bodies, including the Biden Department of Health and Human Service’s National Toxicology Program (in August of 2024) confirmed likely or definite health risks to fluoride in water. Recent studies of CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys have found significant associations between low levels of fluoride and various indicators of chronic disease, including reduced testosterone levels in boys, increased inflammation, altered kidney and liver function, and increased sleep problems.
176. Wednesday, March 26, 2025
The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed that wrongly stated, without attribution, that Trump envoy Steve Witkoff committed “security malpractice” by using a commercial app while in Russia. However, Witkoff and the White House stated that the Journal never contacted them for comment and, in fact, that Witkoff only had a specially issued secure line of communication while in Russia.
175. Monday, March 24, 2025
NBC and Aria Bendix are scientifically wrong as they try to debunk Robert Kennedy Jr’s accurate info about cell phone radiation links to cancer.
At least three expert medical groups have linked certain kinds of electromagnetic fields, or EMFs, to cancer, particularly childhood leukemia. The U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a working group under the World Health Organization, and a European Scientific Committee, which studied cell phones in particular. In addition, as I reported, the plus was pulled on additional worrisome research midstream: Researchers concluded there was “clear evidence” that high levels of cell phone radiation caused male rats to develop cancerous heart tumors. And there were “significant increases in DNA damage” in the brains of male mice and rats, and blood cells of female mice.
174. Friday, March 21, 2025
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and others reported anonymous claims that Elon Musk was heading to the Pentagon to be briefed on “the U.S. military’s plan for any war that might break out with China.” Many media, such as NPR, NBC, and The Wall Street Journal, repeated the anonymous claims.
The Pentagon and Trump stated no such plan was ever in the works, and that Musk went to the Pentagon that day to talk about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.
174. Tuesday, March 18, 2025
AP issued a correction concerning its false reporting about a story involving a claim that Trump Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had said President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were “very good friends.” The referenced friendship was actually between Trump and India’s leader. AP later stated that its story didn’t meet standards.
MSNBC hosts Stephanie Ruhle and Ali Velshi also reported the false information. Intheir correction, MSNBC stated, “Last night we reported on excerpts of an interview between the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and an Indian TV news network in which she said that Trump was good friends with a world leader. We said that world leader was Vladimir Putin. But the full interview shows that Gabbard was referring to Trump and Indian Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi.”
173. Thursday March 13, 2025
Axios and many others in media continually misreport many facts regarding vaccines and other health issues, particularly in their opposition to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services and Dr. Dave Weldon to head CDC.
In an article by Caitlin Owens, Axios falsely reported that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, was “taken out of childhood vaccines in 2001.” As my recent investigation proved, using the government’s own records, thimerosal was never removed from all vaccines approved for or recommended for children.
Axios also repeated the misleading pharmaceutical industry narrative that, “Studies have also found no evidence of a connection between vaccines and autism.” This is misleading since it implies no studies have found a connection. In fact, many studies, government court cases, and even the government’s own expert witness in such cases, have theorized or admitted links between vaccines and autism.
Finally, Axios also repeated the misleading claim, “Many studies have found no evidence of harm of thimerosal in low doses in vaccines.” It’s misleading since many studies and government experts have found evidence of harm of thimerosal in low doses in vaccines.
172. Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Numerous media outlets, including The US Sun, reported in February that the Philadelphia Eagles would snub Donald Trump’s White House invitation after their Super Bowl win. This claim, attributed to an anonymous source before the Super Bowl, suggested a preemptive rejection. By February 24, the White House clarified no invitation had been sent, and Eagles sources later told ESPN and others they’d accept if invited. Nonetheless, on February 25, Newsweek reported, “The Philadelphia Eagles have reportedly snubbed an invitation to the White House following their Super Bowl victory, sparking backlash from MAGA.” The Economic Times of India falsely reported: “Super Bowl 2025 champions Philadelphia Eagles have now entered into a wave of controversy afte[r] rejecting the invite to visit the White House for the second time now, and will not be attending the traditional meet and greet with the US President.”
On March 11, the White House officially announced it had extended the invitation and the Eagle had “enthusiastically” accepted.
171. Tuesday, March 4, 2025
CNN and other media outlets fact-checked as “false” a President Trump address to Congress claim that millions of US tax dollars were spent experimenting to make mice transgender.
“CNN journalist Deidre McPhillips asserted that Trump falsely claimed’ Tuesday night that the Department of Government Efficiency identified $8 million that was spent on ‘making mice transgender,'” Fox News later reported. “Instead, she argued that grants were given to projects that applied hormone therapy to monkeys to understand its effects on HIV treatment.”
Numerous media outlets claimed Elon Musk “doesn’t have a security clearance” and shouldn’t be accessing certain government records. However, Musk has long had a security clearance and multiple sources say it’s currently at a Top Secret level.
168. Friday, Jan. 17, 2025
A jury found CNN guilty of defamation in the case of US Navy Veteran Young Zachary Young for implying he illegally profited by helping people flee Afghanistan during the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal in 2021.
The story by Alex Marquardt aired on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” The jury made a multi-million dollar award to Young, who says the reporting destroyed his reputation.
167. Friday, Jan. 10, 2025
The Daily Mail published a detailed report saying that the Fire Chief of Los Angeles, Kristen Crowley, had been summarily fired after criticizing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for budget cuts ahead of California’s deadly fire disaster.
However, Chief Crowley remained on the job and the Daily Mail changed its story.
166. Throughout 2023-2024
Multiple news outlets reported that it was a “conspiracy theory,” Republican narrative, or “cheap fakes” that made it seem as though President Biden’s mental capacity was diminished.
Later, there was general agreement that they’d been wrong on this claim.
165. Sat. Dec. 14, 2024
ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump over a false statement made by George Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos inaccurately stated that Trump was found civilly liable for raping Jean Carroll. According to reports, ABC is also expected to post a note on its website apologizing for the claim, and Trump’s attorney will also get $1 million in legal fees as a result of the settlement.
164. Friday, December 13, 2024
The New York Times implied, and global media repeated the story, that Trump’s pick for HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wanted to pull “the” polio vaccine off the market. In fact, the years old petition filed by an attorney who has worked with Kennedy was filed on behalf of an unrelated group. Further, did not ask for “the” polio vaccine to be withdrawn. It addressed safety questions regarding one of numerous polio vaccines available and on the market.
163. Throughout 2024
Many news outlets, analysts, and reporters repeatedly stated, as if it were a fact rather than a prediction, that the Trump-Harris presidential election would be historically “close,” “razor thin,” statistical tie,” etc.
NBC News, for example, reported of the “extremely close” and “razor thin” margin.
Axios reported on Election Day that things were so close, it could take a week to declare a winner.
In the end, it wasn’t close. Trump won the battleground states, the electoral votes, and the popular vote.
The New York Times, a serial offender on the Media Mistakes list, actually got this one right declaring: The Polls Are Close. The Results Might Not Be. Likewise, The Guardian quoted analysts who rightly predicted the razor thin margins showing in the polls might not be right.
Axios, Reuters, and PBS’ Judy Woodruff repeated false claims that Trump was “on the phone” encouraging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to put off peace talks in Israel’s conflict with the Islamic extremist terrorist group Hamas, because a deal could help Democrat Kamala Harris.
Woodruff later apologized, admitted she hadn’t done any reporting of her own, and she also said she hadn’t seen that both the Trump campaign and Israel had denied the claims.
161. Sat. July 13, 2024
In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump getting shot at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, numerous left-leaning news organizations posted headlines that obviously did not match what had clearly been observed and recorded on video. The headlines seemed designed to make Trump seem weak or minimize the seriousness of the event.
For example, CNN claimed Trump was rushed off the stage after he “fell.” At no point did it reasonably appear as though Trump had “fallen.”
Although it was immediately clear there may have been shots fired, some outlets chose to skip mentioning the possibility and instead implied that Trump had reacted to scary, loud pops or noises.
The Washington Post and AP claimed Trump had been escorted away after “loud noises.”
And a grammatically incorrect headline from left-leaning USA Today stated that “loud noises startles [sic] former president.”
While it’s difficult to know what’s occurring during a breaking news event, the reports of gunfire were immediate, and Trump was seen immediately grabbing his ear and with blood on it. Reasonable headlines stated that there were reports of gunshots that had yet to be definitively verified.
160. Aug. 15, 2017
This is another belated add. On Aug. 15, 2017, at a news conference, President Trump gave an initial response to protests in Charlottesville, Va. The media falsely reported that Trump referred to Nazis and white supremacists as “very fine people.”
In fact, Trump explicitly, repeatedly condemned any white supremacists. He stated, for example, “we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.”
Trump also stated, “I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee.” And Trump added, “you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.
Trump was condemning Nazis and white supremacists, and made the explicit distinction that not everyone who was protesting fell into that category.
159. April 3, 2020
This is a belated add because it was an oversight when it originally happened. Multiple media outlets claimed President Trump told people to “drink” or “inject” bleach.
Trump never said this. The fabrications were spread after Trump alluded to research and studies on bleach-like disinfectant to treat Covid.
According to published information, “Chlorine dioxide is a gas used in very small quantities to disinfect water…Chlorine dioxide kills bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Very small amounts are used in public water treatment facilities.”
158. Oct. 5, 2023
Citing anonymous sources, ABC, The New York Times, CBS, and other media report Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with a foreigner from Australia after Trump was president. Trump called the story “false and ridiculous and “almost all of Australia’s living former prime ministers have denied receiving top-secret information.” CBS later reported, “Sources tell CBS News there is no indication former President Trump shared sensitive records with an Australian billionaire + no charges have been filed by the Special Counsel through their alleged discussion about US Nuclear subs was investigated.”
157. March 17, 2022
The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and many others falsely reported that the Hunter Biden laptop scandal story was “unsubstantiated” and/or “Russian disinformation.” In September, 2021, the New York Times quietly deleted its false “unsubstantiated” claim. In March 2022, the newspaper acknowledged that the FBI did have a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, which contained scandalous material and possible alleged evidence of criminal activity.
Along with the false reporting by the Times and others, social media giants censored the story, incorrectly calling it “false” and “disinformation.” Polling later revealed that a large number of Biden voters would not have voted for Biden in 2020 if they had known about the censored Hunter Biden laptop story.
156. June 9, 2021
The Inspector General found that, contrary to false media reports by NPR and others, and implications by NBC and others, the Secret Service did not clear Lafayette Park in May of 2020 for the purposes of allowing Trump to have a photo op posing with a Bible. The crowd was cleared for a contractor to install a fence and because protesters were breaking the law.
155. June 2, 2021
The Washington Post joins a cacophony of other media in finally correcting their reporting that falsely claimed, early and often, that the Covid-19 “lab theory” was a “debunked” “conspiracy theory.”
154. April 27, 2021
A New York Times report one year ago this week was wildly incorrect in projecting the first Covid-19 vaccine would not be ready until November of 2033.
They were only off a little bit: instead of taking more than 13 years, it took about seven months. The Times also said if a SARS vaccine were able to be “repurposed” that could be ready as early as “late 2021.”
Also, nearly every expert quoted in the Times article was also far off the mark, including vaccine industry propagandist Peter Hotez, who discussed a fast-tracked 18-month time frame.
The original story post and list follow. Additional items are now added at the top of this post.
We the media have “fact-checked” President Trump like we have fact-checked no other human being on the planet, and he’s certainly given us plenty to write about. That’s probably why it’s so easy to find lists enumerating and examining his mistakes, missteps and “lies.”
But as self-appointed arbiters of truth, we’ve largely excused our own unprecedented string of fact-challenged reporting. The truth is, formerly well-respected, top news organizations are making repeat, unforced errors in numbers that were unheard of just a couple of years ago.
Our repeat mistakes involve declaring that Trump’s claims are “lies” when they are matters of opinion, or when the truth between conflicting sources is unknowable; taking Trump’s statements and events out of context; reporting secondhand accounts against Trump without attribution as if they’re established fact; relying on untruthful, conflicted sources; and presenting reporter opinions in news stories,without labeling them as opinions.
What’s worse, we defend ourselves by trying to convince the public that our mistakes are actually a virtue because we (sometimes) correct them. Or we blame Trump for why we’re getting so much wrong. Is a little bit like a police officer taking someone to jail for DUI, then driving home drunk himself: he may be correct to arrest the suspect, but he should certainly know better than to commit the same violation.
So since nobody else has compiled an updated, extensive list of this kind, here are:
Notable Mistakes and Missteps in Major Media Reporting on Donald Trump
1. Aug. 2016-Nov. 2016:
The New York Post published modeling photos of Trump’s wife Melania and reported they were taken in 1995. Various news outlets relied on that date to imply that Melania, an immigrant, had violated her visa status. But the media got the date wrong. Politico was among the news agencies that later issued a photo date correction.
2. Oct. 1, 2016:
The New York Times and other media widely suggested or implied that Trump had not paid income taxes for 18 years. Later, tax return pages leaked to MSNBC ultimately showed that Trump actually paid a higher rate than Democrats Bernie Sanders and President Obama.
3. Oct. 18, 2016:
In a Washington Post piece not labelled opinion or analysis, Stuart Rothenberg reported that Trump’s path to an electoral college victory was “nonexistent.”
4. Nov. 4, 2016:
USA Today misstated Melania Trump’s “arrival date from Slovenia” amid a flurry of reporting that questioned her immigration status from the mid-1990s.
5. Nov. 9, 2016:
Early on election night, the Detroit Free Press called the state of Michigan for Hillary Clinton. Trump actually won Michigan.
Nancy Sinatra via Twitter
6. Jan. 20, 2017:
CNN claimed Nancy Sinatra was “not happy” at her father’s song being used at Trump’s inauguration. Sinatra responded, “That’s not true. I never said that. Why do you lie, CNN? Actually I’m wishing him the best.”
7. Jan. 20, 2017:
Zeke Miller of TIME reported that President Trump had removed the bust statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. The news went viral. It was false.
8. Jan. 26, 2017:
Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported that the State Department’s “entire senior administrative team” had resigned in protest of Trump. A number of media outlets ranging from politically left to right, including liberal-leaning Vox, stated that claim was misleading or wrong.
9. Jan. 28, 2017
CNBC’s John Harwood reported the Justice Department “had no input” on Trump’s immigration executive order. After a colleague contradicted Harwood’s report, he amended it to reflect that Justice Department lawyers reportedly had reviewed Trump’s order.
10. Jan. 31, 2017:
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reported the White House set up Twitter accounts for two judges to try to keep Trump’s selection for Supreme Court secret. Zeleny later corrected his report to state that the Twitter accounts had not been set up by the White House.
11. Feb. 2, 2017:
TMZ reported Trump changed the name of “Black History Month” to “African American History Month,” implying the change was untoward or racist. In fact, Presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had all previously called Black History Month “African American History” month.
12. Feb. 2, 2017:
AP reported that Trump had threatened the president of Mexico with invasion to get rid of “bad hombres.” Numerous publications followed suit. The White House said it wasn’t true and the Washington Post removed the AP info that ‘could not be independently confirmed.”
13. Feb. 4, 2017:
Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported on “Inside the White House-Cabinet Battle Over Trump’s Immigration Order,” only to have the article updated repeatedly to note that one of the reported meetings had not actually occurred, that a conference call had not happened as described, and that actions attributed to Trump were actually taken by his chief of staff.
14. Feb. 14, 2017:
The New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo reported about supposed contacts between Trump campaign staff and “senior Russian intelligence officials.: Comey later testified “In the main, [the article] was not true.”
15. Feb. 22, 2017:
ProPublica’s Raymond Bonner reported CIA official Gina Haspel, Trump’s later pick for CIA Director, was in charge of a secret CIA prison where Islamic extremist terrorist Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month, and that she mocked the prisoner’s suffering. More than a year later, ProPublica retracted the claim, stating that “Neither of these assertions is correct “Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended.”
16. April 5, 2017:
An article bylined by the New York Times’ graphic editors Karen Yourish and Troy Griggs referred to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, as Trump’s wife.
17. May 10, 2017:
Multiple outlets including Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, AP, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported the same leaked information: that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey shortly after Comey requested additional resources to investigate Russian interference in the election.
The New York Times’ Matthew Rosenberg and Matt Apuzzo, and CNN’s Sara Murray reported the information in sentences and paragraphs that omitted attribution, as if it were an established fact. The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Sari Horwitz and Robert Costa wrote news articles in the style of opinion pieces and from an omniscient viewpoint as if they were somehow in the mind of Trump. For example, they reported, “Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia.” (Other reporters, Reuters, Dustin Volz and Susan Cornwell, did properly attribute the claim.)
The Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said the media reports were untrue and McCabe added that the FBI?s Russia investigation was “adequately resourced.”
18. May 27, 2017:
The BBC’s James Landale, The Guardian and others reported that Trump wasn’t bothering to listen to the translation during a speech in Italian by Italy’s Prime Minister. They drew that conclusion without asking the White House and based on a video that showed other political leaders wearing large headphones. The Guardian even claimed Trump was fake listening (smiling and nodding). After the reports circulated, the White House stated that, as always, Trump was indeed wearing an earpiece in his right ear.
19. June 4, 2017:
NBC News reported in a Tweet that Russian President Vladimir Putin told TV host Megyn Kelly that he had compromising information about Trump. Actually, Putin said the opposite: that he did not have compromising information on Trump.
20. June 6, 2017:
CNN’s Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus; and ABC’s Justin Fishel and Jonathan Karl reported that Comey was going to refute Donald Trump’s claim that Comey told Trump three times he was not under investigation. Instead, Comey did the opposite and confirmed Trump’s claim.
21. June 7, 2017:
In a fact-check story, AP reported erroneously that Trump misread the potential cost to a family with insurance under the Affordable Care Act who wanted care from their existing doctor.
22. June 8, 2017:
The New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman reported that Comey testified Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Comey not to call the Russia probe “an investigation” but “a matter.” Weisman was mistaken about the attorney general and the probe. Actually, it was Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch (not Sessions) who told Comey to refer to the Hillary Clinton classified email probe (not the Russia probe) as “a matter” instead of “an investigation.”
23. June 22, 2017:
CNN’s Thomas Frank reported that Congress was investigating a
“Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials.” The report was later retracted. Frank and two other CNN employees resigned in the fallout.
24. December 2, 2017:
ABC News’ Brian Ross reported that former Trump official Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was going to testify that candidate Trump had directed him to contact “the Russians.” Even though such contact would not be in of itself a violation of law, the news was treated as an explosive indictment of Trump in the Russia collusion narrative, and the stock market fell on the news. ABC later corrected the report to reflect that Trump had already been elected when he reportedly asked Flynn to contact the Russians about working together to fight ISIS and other issues. Ross was suspended.
25. July 6, 2017:
Newsweek’s Chris Riotta and others reported that Poland’s First Lady had refused to shake Trump’s hand. Newsweek’s later “update” reflected that the First Lady had shaken Trump’s hand after all, as clearly seen on the full video.
26. July 6, 2017:
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, CNN and numerous outlets had long reported, as if fact, the Hillary Clinton claim that a total of 17 American intelligence agencies concluded that Russia orchestrated election year attacks to help get Trump elected. Only three or four agencies, not 17, had officially done so.
27. Aug. 31, 2017:
NBC News’ Ken Dilanian and Carol Lee reported that a Trump official’s notes about a meeting with a Russian lawyer included the word “donation,” as if there were discussions about suspicious campaign contributions. NBC later corrected the report to reflect that the word “donation” didn’t appear, but still claimed the word “donor” did. Later, Politico reported that the word “donor” wasn’t in the notes, either.
28. Sept. 5, 2017:
CNN’s Chris Cillizza and other news outlets declared Trump “lied” when he stated that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, although there’s no way any reporter independently knew the truth of the matter, only that what intel officials claimed. It later turned out there were numerous wiretaps involving Trump Tower, including a meeting of Trump officials with a foreign dignitary. At least two Trump associates who had offices in or frequented Trump Tower were also reportedly wiretapped.
29. Sept. 7, 2017:
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported Democrat leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi called President Trump about an immigration issue. Trump actually made the call to Pelosi.
30. Nov. 6, 2017:
CNN’s Daniel Shane edited excerpts from a Trump event to make it seem as though Trump didn’t realize Japan builds cars in the U.S. However, Trump’s entire statement made clear that he does.
31. Nov. 6, 2017:
CNN edited a video that made it appear as though Trump impatiently dumped a box of fish food into the water while feeding fish at Japan’s palace. The New York Daily News, the Guardian and others wrote stories implying Trump was gauche and impetuous. The full video showed that Trump had simply followed the lead of Japan’s Prime Minister.
32. Nov. 29, 2017:
Newsweek’s Chris Riotta claimed Ivanka Trump “plagiarized” one of her own speeches. In fact, plagiarizing one’s own work is impossible since plagiarism is when a writer steals someone else’s work and passes it off as his own.
33. Dec. 4, 2017:
The New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt and Sharon LaFraniere and other outlets reported that Trump Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland supposedly contradicted herself or lied about another official’s contacts with Russians. The story was heavily, repeatedly amended. CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, New York Daily News and Daily Beast picked up the story about McFarland’s “lies.”
34. Dec. 4, 2017:
ABC News’ Trish Turner and Jack Date reported that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had recently worked with a Russia intelligence-connected “official.” But the Russian wasn’t an “official.”
35. Dec. 5, 2017:
Bloomberg’s Steven Arons and the Wall Street Journal’s Jenny Strasburg reported the blockbuster that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had subpoenaed Trump’s bank records. It wasn’t true.
36. Dec. 8, 2017:
CNN’s Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb reported that Donald Trump Jr. conspired with WikiLeaks in advance of the publication of damaging Democrat party and Clinton campaign emails. Many other publications followed suit. They had the date wrong: WikiLeaks and Trump Junior were in contact after the emails were published.
37. Jan. 3, 2018:
Talking Point Memo’s Sam Thielman reported that a Russian social media company provided documents to the Senate about communications with a Trump official. The story was later corrected to say the reporter actually had no idea how the Senate received the documents and had no evidence to suggest the Russian company was cooperating with the probe.
38. Jan. 12, 2018:
Mediaite’s Lawrence Bonk, CNN’s Sophie Tatum, the Guardian, BBC, US News and World Report, Reuters and Buzzfeed’s Adolfo Flores reported a “bombshell,” that President Trump had backed down from his famous demand for a wall along the entire Southern border. However, Trump said the very same thing in February 2016 on MSNBC, on Dec. 2, 2015, in the National Journal, in October 2015 during the CNBC Republican Primary debate, and on Aug. 20, 2015, on FOX Business’ Mornings with Maria.
39. Jan. 15, 2018:
AP’s Laurie Kellman and Jonathan Drew reported that a new report showed trust in the media had fallen during the Trump presidency. But the report that AP cited was actually over a year old and was conducted while Obama was president.
40. Feb. 2, 2018:
AP’s Eric Tucker, Mary Clare Jalonick and Chad Day reported that ex-British spy Christopher Steele’s opposition research against Trump was initially funded by a conservative publication: the Washington Free Beacon. AP corrected its story because Steele only came on the project after Democrats began funding it.
41. March 8, 2018:
The New York Times’ Jan Rosen reported on a hypothetical family whose tax bill would rise nearly $4,000 under Trump’s tax plan. It turns out the calculations were off: the couple’s taxes would go actually go down $43; not up $4,000.
42. March 13, 2018:
The New York Times’ Adam Goldman, NBC’s Noreen O’Donnell and AP’s Deb Riechmann reported that Trump’s pick for CIA Director, Gina Haspel, had waterboarded a particular Islamic extremist terrorist dozens of time at a secret prison; and that she had mocked his suffering. In fact, Haspel wasn’t assigned to the prison until after the detainee left. ProPublica originally reported the incorrect details in Feb. 2017.
43. March 15, 2018:
AP’s Michael Biesecker, Jake Pearson and Jeff Horwitz reported that a Trump advisory board official had been a Miss America contestant and had killed a black rhino. She actually was a Mrs. America contestant and had shot a nonlethal tranquilizer dart at a white rhino.
AP’s Nicholas Riccardi reported that the Trump administration had ended a program to admit foreign entrepreneurs. It wasn’t true.
45. April 30, 2018:
AP reported that the NRA had banned guns during Trump and Pence speeches at the NRA’s annual meeting. AP later corrected the information because the ban had been put in place by Secret Service.
46. May 3, 2018:
NBC’s Tom Winter reported that the government had wiretapped Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen. NBC latercorrected the story after three senior U.S. officials said there was no wiretap.
47. May 7, 2018:
CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger reported that Trump’s personal lawyer, Cohen, paid $1 million in fines related to unauthorized cars in his taxi business, had been barred from managing taxi medallions, had transferred $60 million offshore to avoid paying debts, and is awaiting trial on charges of failing to pay millions in taxes. A later correction stated that none of that was true.
48. May 16, 2018:
The New York Times’ Julie Hirschfeld Davis, AP, CNN’s Oliver Darcy and others excerpted a Trump comment as if he had referred to immigrants or illegal immigrants generally as “animals.” Most outlets corrected their reports later to note that Trump had specifically referred to members of the murderous criminal gang MS-13.
49. May 28, 2018
The New York Times’ Magazine editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein and CNN’s Hadas Gold shared a story with photos of immigrant children in cages as if they were new photos taken under the Trump administration. The article and photos were actually from 2014 under the Obama administration.
50. May 29, 2018
The New York Times’ Julie Davis reported the estimated size of a Trump rally to be 1,000 people. There were actually 5,500 people or more in attendance.
51. June 1, 2018
In a story about Trump tariffs, AP reported the dollar value of Virginia’s farm and forestry exports to Canada and Mexico was $800. It’s $800 million.
52. June 21, 2018
Time magazine and others used a photo of a crying Honduran child to illustrate a supposed Trump administration policy separating illegal immigrant parents and children. The child’s father later reported that agents had never separated her from her mother; the mother had taken her to the US without his knowledge and separated herself from her other children, whom she left behind.
53. June 22, 2018
MSNBC personality Joe Scarborough mistakenly stated that Trump had “banned” the Red Cross from visiting children separated from illegal immigrant parents.
Many of the early failings in COVID response can be laid right at the doorstep of the CDC and FDA.
Shortages of testing? The FDA refused to approve an tests except those developed at the CDC, and then the CDC tests failed. Later, the FDA was really slow and conservative in approving new test approaches (eg home testing).
Shortages of PPE? We learned that PPE manufacturers were all heavily regulated by the FDA, and FDA rules prevented quick ramp-ups, while liability rules made folks like 3M reluctant to shift N95 masks from non-medical to medical markets.
Slow vaccine rollout? The FDA was its usual conservative self in approving vaccines, and refused to give any credit to vaccines approved by other western nations. THEY had to approve it too.
First doses first? No way, the CDC and FDA would not even consider it. The conservative approach was to insist the vaccines be used exactly as originally tested, despite testing on the Pfizer vaccine showing that 1 dose of it was over 80% effective. Now we see the world leader in reducing cases is the UK, which is the one country that did first doses first.
In a sane world, the CDC and FDA would have gotten hammered for what could be described as following peacetime rules in during wartime. Add to that their ever-shifting and contradictory guidance, and guidance on NPI's that went against the sum of scientific research that had been published pre-2020, and you should have expected a LOT of media scrutiny of them in 202o. Instead there was virtually none, and if anything the media fetishized and hero-worshipped these agencies. Why?
As usual, the answer is Trump. By 2020 the media was in the habit of blaming everything on Trump. If COVID tests were in short supply, it must be Trump's fault. No further scrutiny was needed. In fact, no further scrutiny was wanted, because no explanation excerpt for "Trump's fault" was wanted. Granted Trump helped them to some extent by his usual habit of off-the-cuff stupid statements. But the media went ever further -- they wanted an anti-pole to Trump, and these agencies and morons like Dr. Fauci were elevated to sainthood not because they did anything right but because they could be portrayed as not-Trump.
For the media, whatever the FDA or CDC said represented scientific consensus. Which is a horrible bastardization of science. The FDA and CDC are not "science" and scientific "consensus", if such a thing is even real, is based on a quasi-antagonistic process of challenge and response between differing hypotheses (a process by the way the media actually undermined by de-platforming one side of many of the COVID-related debates) and not dictats by government agencies. The FDA and CDC are populated by politicians and government bureaucrats who happen to have scientific degrees. They are subject to all the same influences and bad incentives as any other political organization. For example, in the government there are very different risk profiles between action and inaction. Essentially, bureaucrats are seldom held accountable for deaths and harm from inaction -- if people die because they are slow to approve a new drug or procedure, no one puts that on them. But they try to avoid at all costs approving something that eventually hurts someone, even if that harm is far less than the benefits of what they approved. But instead of making all this clear, the media granted them the secular form of Papal infallibility.
So now we arrive at April 2021, and the FDA shut down the use of the J&J vaccine because it has about a 1 in a million chance of causing blood clots and a one in 6 million chance of causing a fatality. People seem suddenly surprised that the FDA would do such a thing that is obviously so irrational (the number of lives saved by the vaccine is -- by everyone's estimate -- orders of magnitude larger that those who have died from this side effect that may not actually even be due to the vaccine).
What is surprising to me is that anyone is surprised. The FDA has ALWAYS acted this way. Libertarians have called them out of this for years (thus, for example, libertarian-sponsored right to try laws). In particular, failure after failure of COVID response in 2020 can be laid right at the FDA's doorstep, but we were just having too much fun demonizing Trump to actually look for root causes. Well, now our inattention has come back to bite us with this absurd FDA decision. The only good thing that can come from it is the potential that we might finally consider some reforms.
“[We] have to be extra careful about what is being said, since we can’t just say something controversial now that we’re in people’s homes [because of remote learning].”
A North Carolina man is fighting to get back $39,500 in cash after police in Phoenix, Arizona, seized the money from him at an airport on suspicion that it was drug money, despite never charging him with a crime.
The Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public interest law firm, filed an appeal Monday in the Arizona Court of Appeals on behalf of Jerry Johnson. Johnson owns a trucking company and says he flew to Phoenix last August to possibly purchase a semi-truck at auction.
"I flew to Phoenix thinking I could get a good deal on a truck that would allow me to expand my business," Johnson said in an Institute for Justice press release. "But instead, the police took my money without ever charging me with a crime. It's been a struggle to lose my savings, and now my business is barely getting by. I'm fighting for my money, but I'm also fighting because this should never happen to anyone else."
The Institute for Justice is currently litigating a separate class-action lawsuit on behalf of people whose cash was seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) at airports. One of the lead plaintiffs in that case, Stacy Jones, had $43,167 in cash seized by the DEA as she was trying to fly home to Tampa, Florida, from Wilmington, North Carolina. Jones says the cash was from the sale of a used car, as well as money she and her husband intended to take to a casino.
Although it is legal to fly domestically with large amounts of undeclared cash, police have a habit of seizing currency from travelers under civil asset forfeiture laws. This practice allows law enforcement to seize property—cash, cars, guns, houses—suspected of being connected to criminal activity, even if the owner is never charged or convicted of a crime.
The DEA and local police regularly snoop on travel records and maintain a network of travel industry employees who act as confidential informants. A 2016 USA Todayinvestigation found the DEA seized more than $209 million from at least 5,200 travelers in 15 major airports over the previous decade.
Law enforcement groups say civil forfeiture is an important tool for disrupting drug trafficking and other organized crime by targeting its ill-gotten gains. However, civil liberties groups say there are too few procedural protections for innocent owners and too many perverse profit incentives for police.
More than half of U.S. states have passed some form of asset forfeiture reform because of such concerns. The Arizona House passed a bill in February that would require law enforcement to obtain a criminal conviction before a defendant's assets could be forfeited. If it passes the state senate, Arizona would join New Mexico, Nebraska, and North Carolina in essentially eliminating civil asset forfeiture.
The state already passed reforms in 2017 to raise the evidentiary threshold for forfeitures from "a preponderance of evidence" to "clear and convincing evidence," but that did not help Johnson.
After Johnson challenged the seizure and presented bank statements and tax returns to establish ownership of the money, the judge in his case ruled that because of inconsistencies in his story and circumstantial evidence offered by prosecutors—an old criminal record, buying a last-minute ticket with a quick turnaround, his nervous appearance in the airport, having three cell phones, and the alleged odor of marijuana on the cash—he hadn't established a legitimate interest in the cash.
"In Arizona, prosecutors are required to prove through clear and convincing evidence that money is connected to criminal activity before the property can be forfeited," Institute for Justice senior attorney Dan Alban said in a press release. "But instead of holding the state to its burden of proving guilt, the court required Jerry to prove his own innocence."
The Institute for Justice believes the outcome of Johnson's case could have broader implications for Arizona's efforts to reform asset forfeiture. If the forfeiture is allowed to stand, Alban said, "it would create a dangerous loophole, undermining Arizona's efforts to protect property owners."
The Phoenix Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment.
In some recent debates over the Great Barrington Declaration, critics of that proposal argued that we didn't know that COVID was only a relatively small threat to healthy people under 65. But we did know, as early as April or at worst May. I know I was writing about it. Just think of all the articles you have read with the theme of "everyone, not just old people, need to be terrified of COVID" and then look at this:
People over 65 make up only 18% of the UK population but clearly accounted for 90+% of the deaths.
Here is the calculus as I see it: I was 58 when this all started. Let's assume I have 20 good years. Hiding in my home and not doing the things I enjoy for a whole year, as preached by Fauci and company, would have wasted 5% of my remaining life. Instead, by ignoring them and going about my business, I was taking perhaps a 1/2000 chance of dying to the disease or 0.05% (I actually think given my health and weight that this is exaggerated). These two numbers are not even close. They are not one but two full orders of magnitude apart. When presented with these numbers, and given my preferences, it would have been wildly irrational (or demonstrated extreme risk aversion) for me to follow the advice and dictats of the coronabros.
WOW: Penn Scientists Correct Genetic Blindness With a Single Injection into the Eye. “The patient had suffered from poor visual acuity, reduced fields of view, and zero night vision, Clinical OMICS reports, but after one shot, the patient showed remarkable improvement over the course of the next 15 months — similar to people who got multiple, regular injections.”
RADICAL CHIC: Marxist BLM leader buys $1.4 million home in ritzy LA enclave. “Black Lives Matter, which began as hashtag in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, took in more than $90 million last year and was at the forefront of protests across the country last year after the death of George Floyd in May.”
We can’t have countries competing on tax rates. That might put downward pressure on tax rates, and that might crimp the style of the global ruling class. Which, as you may have noticed, is engaged in a worldwide effort to shut down any constraints on its freedom of action.
