Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Is CNN Having an Awakening?

Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF


CNN host, Fareed Zakaria, blasted Democratic-run cities for embracing a principle long familiar to conservatives: the more government tries to solve a problem, the more it can fuel waste, fraud, abuse, and dysfunction. He argued that government “solutions” often leave problems worse than before, drain taxpayers, and expand faster than the society they are meant to serve.

Is CNN finally awakening to reality? Or are they just desperate for viewers?

Be informed, not misled.

Even CNN has been forced to admit that the leftist-run cities are miserably failing because of their policies.

"New York is really a prime example of a problem Democrats seem unwilling to confront. Blue cities are out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less, and pushing off the fiscal problems to some future day," Zakaria said.

He went on to note that while Los Angeles now has nearly a $1 billion homelessness budget, the crisis continues to worsen, and billions of dollars in spending cannot be clearly traced or tied to measurable results.

Eric Daugherty posted this:

CNN was just FORCED into calling out the NGO fraud operation in California: "Los Angeles...homelessness budget was $950M! Yet homelessness surged 80%!"

"Blue cities are out of control! Promise more, spending more, delivering less."

Zakaria said, "New York is really a prime example of a problem Democrats seem unwilling to confront. Blue cities are out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less, and pushing off the fiscal problems to some future day."

It's noted that while Los Angeles now has nearly a $1 billion homelessness budget, the crisis continues to worsen, and billions of dollars in spending cannot be clearly traced or tied to measurable results.

"Take Los Angeles," Zakaria says, "another one-party metropolis wrestling with affordability and disorder. The city's homelessness budget for fiscal year 2025-26 totals about $950 million. The L.A. Homelessness Services Authority reported that in 2023, homelessness was up 9 percent countywide and 10 percent in the city. And a 2024 AP account noted that homelessness has surged 70 percent countywide since 2015 and 80 percent in the city."

You can trace most of the homelessness to major cities run by leftist mayors and leftist, socialist policies.

And fraud.

He says, "All this amid public frustration despite billions spent. An audit reviewed $2.4 billion in city homelessness funding and found that officials could not reliably track where it went or what it achieved."

"Or take Chicago, with a mayor whose approval rating is deep underwater, where the pension promises are so large that they will surely bankrupt the city at some point," he added.

"What is the theory of good government here?" Zakaria asked. "If the answer is keep adding programs, the city will keep producing unaffordability. Because unaffordability is what happens when government becomes a machine that grows faster than the society it governs."

Let's take a look at Seattle.

Democratic Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s first State of the City address last Tuesday drew criticism for technical difficulties and policy priorities, The Center Square reported on Wednesday.

Wilson, a self-described socialist, has been widely compared to socialist Democratic New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani. She received poor reviews on her address, which began with technical difficulties and touched on city issues such as crime, homelessness, and affordability, according to The Center Square.

New Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s first State of the City address, which she delivered last Tuesday from the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, did not go over well with critics.

The democratic socialist who narrowly defeated incumbent Bruce Harrell in November spoke about her plans to address the city's challenges, including crime, homelessness, and affordability.

Andrea Suarez is the founder and executive director of We Heart Seattle, a grassroots volunteer movement focused on cleaning up Seattle's public spaces, while providing resources, housing, and treatment options to the homeless.

“She didn’t address the service-resistant crisis population who will not accept shelter or tiny homes,” Suarez told The Center Square. “She didn’t bring up the death toll of our loved ones from fentanyl overdose. She didn’t bring up solutions for the crime associated with drug addiction.”

In her address, Wilson said her plan to address homelessness includes ongoing, improving efforts to prioritize encampment removals, expanding shelter and support services, and exploring parcels of city land for the construction of tiny houses and micro modular shelters.

“The only crime she was concerned with was gun violence and a freak accident the night before that killed a women crossing a street,” Suarez noted.

Two Seattle teenage boys were shot and killed in a targeted attack at a bus stop on South Henderson Street near Rainier Beach High School at the end of last month. Last Tuesday night, a woman was killed after being hit by a car in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Calling Seattle’s drug problem – fentanyl specifically – is the “elephant in the room,” Suarez lamented Wilson’s failure to even mention it in her speech.

Takeaway

If the way Katie's first speech began is any indicator of what is to come, it isn't going to be pretty:

This is the speech from YouTube.

This is from the transcript:

After about 40 seconds of no audio, Wilson could be heard speaking.

“Are you ready for this? I don’t think I’ve ever talked for as long as I’m about to talk, so we’ll see how it goes. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining me today,” the mayor said. “Sorry. Can you please?"

"Technical difficulties. Okay. There. Okay. A little bit less. A little bit. Back. Back the way you came. Back. Back. Okay. Okay. That’s good. Thank you. Okay. Okay!”

Wilson then cleared her throat and launched into her speech.

It appears that many people also cleared their throats as they asked, "What have we done?" 

Most people feel frustrated about crime, homelessness, housing costs, or public disorder in many of our major cities. In the U.S., most of those cities have Democrat, leftist mayors. 

Cities like Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, New York, and others are seeing steep declines, so they vote for change. Which means they elect another mayor, or whatever, from the same pool of far Left socialist so-called "progressives."

Each time, they expect different results.

But the results are the same. New name, new face, same results. Same worldview.

Policies such as bail reform, reduced prosecution of low-level offenses, or limits on policing tactics have been adopted in cities, but they lead to the same results: reduced deterrence, defund-the-police demonstrations, and lower police morale and performance. Then comes the spike in theft and violent crime...and so it goes. 

Founding Father Patrick Henry said, "Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, are incompatible with freedom."

"It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Faithful. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.

Posted by