Tag Archives: 60 Minutes

business news, national news

Once more about those tax returns

tax-return-form

Donald J. Trump says he’s going to pocket a dollar a year while serving as president of the United States.

How will we know that? I guess we’ll just have to take him at his word.

The public hasn’t seen his income tax returns, after all. Trump said on “60 Minutes” Sunday night that a “routine audit” precludes him from releasing those returns, which he said he’ll do at the appropriate time.

I am sick and tired of hearing this refrain from the president-elect.

A routine audit doesn’t prevent the release of those returns. Moreover, the public still has no demonstrable proof that Trump is actually even being audited in the first place; the Internal Revenue Service does not comment on such matters.

This is one of the many — likely countless — baffling elements of the election that we’ve just endured.

Trump says he’ll forgo virtually all of the $400,000 annual salary the president earns. Perhaps we can take the $399,999 he won’t accept to the bottom line each year.

At one level, I applaud his pledge to skip the salary.

At another level, I just wish I could take him at his word completely that he’ll do what he says he’ll do.

national news, political news

GOP ticket: together for the first time

pence-and-trump1

I watched tonight’s “60 Minutes” interview with Donald Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.

I was amazed — but not surprised — to hear how the Republican presidential nominee, Trump, often wouldn’t let his running mate get a word in edgewise.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/unaired-60-minutes-clips-with-trump-and-pence/

The clips here perhaps illustrate my point.

What did surprise me was how ill-prepared Gov. Pence is to answer the questions that cut to, as Stahl said, “the daylight” that exists between the candidates on policy matters.

Leslie Stahl sought to pin Trump down on the differences the two men have on some key issues. Trade? Trump wouldn’t let Pence answer. For his part, Pence didn’t answer the question directly, either.

How about Trump’s penchant for insult? Pence is much more of a gentlemanly campaigner. He’s said he opposes negative campaigning, that candidates do better to sell their policies rather than denigrating the opponent.

He didn’t answer that question, either.

Perhaps the most awkward evasion came when Stahl asked Pence directly whether he believes — as Trump said some months ago — that Sen. John McCain is a “war hero” only because he got captured by the enemy during the Vietnam War.

Trump interrupted: “McCain is a nice guy.”

Pence never answered that one, either.

This, ladies and gents, is a political team that needs work.

national news, political news

Do as Jolly says, not as he does

jolly

David Jolly says he wants members of Congress to stop spending so much time soliciting money from donors.

So, what does the Florida Republican lawmaker do? He attends a fundraiser to, um, raise money for his own campaign for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Republican Marco Rubio.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/david-jolly-fundraiser-60-minutes-222669

I was somewhat enthralled by Rep. Jolly when he appeared this past Sunday on “60 Minutes.” He has authored something called the STOP Act. Its aim is to prohibit incumbent House members from spending so much time “dialing for dollars.” Jolly told CBS News’ Nora O’Donnell that House members spend more time manning the phones making “cold calls” on donors than they spending doing the job to which they’ve been elected.

He talked about things such as, oh, “constituent service.” You know, dealing with constituents’ questions about Social Security payments, veterans benefits … things like that.

I told some family members just yesterday that if Jolly were running for president today I’d consider voting for him over any of the others seeking the nation’s highest job.

According to Politico: “The piece sparked an intra-party feud between Jolly and the National Republican Congressional Committee. The NRCC said Jolly vastly overstated how much time lawmakers spend raising money.”

He’s gotten only a handful of co-sponsors. The act isn’t likely to get much traction in the House, where members say they “hate” having to raise so much money.

Still, I guess they just can’t help themselves.

As for the fundraiser Jolly attended, his flack justified it by saying Jolly didn’t actually telephone anyone to invite them to the event.

There. Do you feel better about it?

 

International news, media news

Penn fails to make the case

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Bloomberg's Best Photos 2014: Drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted to a helicopter by Mexican security forces at Mexico's International Airport in Mexico city, Mexico, on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. Mexico's apprehension of the world's most-wanted drug boss struck a blow to a cartel that local and U.S. authorities say swelled into a multinational empire, fueling killings around the world. Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Sean Penn invented a word last night on “60 Minutes.”

He called himself an “experiental” journalist.

I’ve been working with words for, oh, damn near 40 years. I consider myself a journalist. I worked at four newspapers in two states. I enjoyed some modest success during my career.

“Experiental”? What the . . . ?

Penn is a movie actor of some renown. He recently ventured to Mexico, where he shook hands with Joaquin Guzman, aka El Chapo, the then-fugitive drug lord; he had escaped in early 2015 from a maximum security prison in Mexico. Penn interviewed this supremely evil individual for a 10,000-word article he wrote for Rolling Stone.

I watched with considerable pain in my gut as Penn sought to explain to CBS News correspondent Charlie Rose what he hoped to accomplish by writing a story about El Chapo, who was recaptured by Mexican authorities the day after the magazine article hit the streets.

I think I heard a tinge of sympathy in this guy’s voice as he tried to relay Guzman’s reasons for peddling drugs, for delivering so much misery to so many millions of people, for being responsible for the deaths of thousands of individuals with whom he has come in contact.

I also believe I detected a look of incredulity in Rose’s face as Penn offered his explanations.

And then Penn would drop that hideous, made-up adjective that he put in front of the word “journalist.”

This thought doesn’t come from me, but I’ll pass on what a friend of mine said this morning on social media.

My friend, too, is a trained journalist. He wants to know if he can now seek to become an “experiental movie actor.”

***

This just in: I’m advised that “experiental” is a real word. I stand corrected on that particular point.

 

 

International news

This man embodied greatness

Nicholas Winton lived 106 years on this Earth.

And for part of that long and glorious life, he managed to do something so astonishing it boggles the mind. He saved the lives of 669 children from death at the hands of the Nazi tyrant Adolf Hitler.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/01/europe/nicholas-winton-obituary/

Queen Elizabeth knighted Sir Nicholas in 2003 for the deed he performed during the late 1930s. He had been to Czechoslovakia and had seen the threat being posed to Jews throughout Europe. Many of them were children who were certain to die at the hands of the Nazi monsters.

He went home to Great Britain and set about to organize the systematic evacuation of those children. He saved their lives, giving them a chance to grow to adulthood and bring families of their own into this world.

His modesty was legendary. He hardly ever spoke about what he had done. “60 Minutes” profiled him a couple of years ago. And in the segment, the news show broadcast a reunion he had with dozens of the people he had saved. He sat among them at a gathering, not knowing these middle-aged individuals were children who owed their very lives to this humble stockbroker.

When they stood up — surrounding him — to recognize what he had done and to thank him publicly, this giant of humanity wept.

Sir Nicholas died today.

As British Prime Minister David Cameron said, “The world has lost a great man.”

Watch this video and you get a look at true, unvarnished greatness.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Take ownership of this failure, Mr. President

It pains me to say this, but President Obama’s response to the question of how the U.S. got “surprised” by the rise of the Islamic State is disappointing — to say the very least.

I’ve noted before how the president likes to use the first-person singular pronoun references to his presidency. He’s particularly fond of using it when they involved success.

When Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” asked him the other day how he could have been surprised by ISIL’s emergence, the president said: “Well I think, our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”

There it is: “they underestimated …”

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/09/isis-sweep-into-iraq-was-no-surprise-to-anyone-paying-attention.html/

I’m not going to join the right-wing mainstream media chorus in saying Barack Obama has thrown Clapper “under the bus.” But as the blog from the Dallas Morning News notes correctly, ISIL’s emergence wasn’t a surprise to those intelligence officials who were paying attention.

Furthermore, as commander in chief, the chief executive of one branch of the U.S. government, the head of state and government, it falls directly on the president of the United States to be aware fully of these matters in real time, as they are happening.

The president did receive a letter signed by senators from both parties that warned him about ISIL. It was sent to the White House nearly 11 months ago, long before those gruesome beheadings captured the nation’s attention. Now we know what’s stake, yes?

Well, apparently, some legislators had more than an inkling nearly a year ago and warned the White House of the impending danger.

As the Morning News’s Tod Robberson notes in his blog: “Okay, let’s assume that Obama disregarded the letter as partisan hyperbole from the same ol’ critics, namely McCain and Graham. That doesn’t account for the contribution from Levin and Menendez. Let’s assume that Obama was reluctant to react because he didn’t trust the mercurial whims of al-Maliki. How does any of that explain his failure to respond when ISIS clearly was sweeping into Iraq’s Anbar Province in January?”

Well, the president is responding now. I’m grateful for that.

I do wish, though, he would take as much ownership of the setbacks as he does of the triumphs.

Uncategorized

U.S. not alone in this fight

Barack Obama wants it known that the United States is not fighting the Islamic State one-on-one, nation vs. cult.

The president of the United States said on “60 Minutes” that the country he leads is just a leader in the fight that comprises an international coalition of nations battling a despicable terrorist organization.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/barack-obama-isil-111395.html?hp=l2

I get that.

The harder sell will be to Americans who are likely to perceive that since we’re “leading” the air strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq that it, indeed, is our fight to win.

I’m willing to welcome the rest of the world to join us in this war against this clearly defined evil force.

There must be no illusions about how long this conflict will persist. As we’ve learned so painfully, the death of one key terrorist leader such as Osama bin Laden does not by itself necessarily weaken an organization he would lead. Al-Qaeda received a serious blow to its command and control when the SEAL and CIA commando team smoked bin Laden in May 2011. Others have surfaced to take his place.

As the world has learned, ISIL has emerged as a serious world threat.

Thus, the world must fight this menace. That is what the president seeks to do, build a worldwide coalition of nations willing and able to fight ISIL to the death.

It is not our battle to wage on our own.

Uncategorized

Drones at my door? No thank you

Allow me to toss a wet blanket on what I will acknowledge to be a truly unique idea for delivering goods to people’s homes.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, says he intends to fill the sky with commercial drones to drop products ordered through his company.

Door-to-door drones spook lawmakers

Members of Congress want to hold hearings on the idea to examine ways to protect people’s privacy.

I’m thinking they also should have hearings to ensure that the drones don’t clutter the sky with traffic that could put people’s lives in danger.

I watched the “60 Minutes” segment Sunday night when Bezos knocked Charlie Rose over with the idea of drones. I’ll admit to being floored by the idea. Then I thought a little about it.

Do we really need to launch these vehicles into the air to ensure prompt delivery of these goods? I’m wondering now if we’re taking technology a bit too far.

“As we move forward toward integrating drones into civilian life and capitalizing on the economic opportunities they offer, we must make certain that these aircraft meet rigorous safety and privacy standards,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Do you think?

I’m all for technology. Heck, I’m learning — finally — to embrace much of what many millions of others embraced long ago. There’s just something vaguely creepy, though, about unleashing these drones to deliver mail-order gifts to people’s front porch.

Just how many of them will take flight? Our airspace seems a bit crowded as it stands right now.

Uncategorized

Memo to Alec: Watch your foul mouth, young man

This has been a tough week for TV news personalities masquerading as broadcast journalists.

First, it was Lara Logan of CBS’s “60 Minutes” being forced to take “administrative leave” for a botched news segment on the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya; four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, died in the firefight. Logan and her producer trotted out a security analyst who told “60 Minutes” he was there when it happened, except that he really didn’t get there until the next day. His credibility came into question after the report that was highly critical of the State Department’s reaction to the tragic event.

See ya, Lara.

Now it’s MSNBC’s turn to wipe the egg off its face. It had hired actor/comedian Alec Baldwin to do an hour-long show every Friday night. Baldwin is known for a lot of things. Yes, he’s a talented actor. He’s also capable of doing some great comedy sketches.

Baldwin also is a loudmouth with a hair-trigger temper.

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=841043

Seems that that Baldwin got into an altercation with a photographer recently and spit out some highly inflammatory names to the fellow. He let loose with an anti-gay slur, preceded by an extremely vulgar adjective.

Hey Alec. You should know that the world is listening to every word you say. Dude, you’re a star and as such, you are not immune from prying eyes and ears. Two words need mentioning here, man: social media.

MSNBC has pulled Baldwin’s show. He says a leading gay-rights organization, GLAAD, and Andrew Sullivan, a noted columnist and author — who happens to be gay — had a hand in “killing” his show.

So what if they did?

He behaved reprehensibly and, as a symbol of a network devoted to news and commentary, he becomes one of the faces of the network.

Alec Baldwin had to go.

One final word of advice, although it will be ignored: Keep your mouth shut, Alec.

Uncategorized

Logan takes ‘leave’ from ’60 Minutes’

That ticking sound you hear at the start of “60 Minutes” each Sunday has taken on a new symbolic meaning.

I’m guessing it now might symbolize that time is running out on of the formerly premier news show’s correspondents, Lara Logan, who has been ordered to take an undetermined leave of absence.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/lara-logan-60-minutes-leave_n_4344883.html

Logan and her producer have earned this kick in the backside.

“60 Minutes” recently broadcast a segment that depended heavily on reports from someone who told the news agency that he was present at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012 when it came under attack from terrorists.

Well, it turned out that the source for the story, security officer Dylan Davies, told the FBI something quite different. He told the feds he didn’t arrive until after the shooting stopped.

The report had been highly critical of the State Department and the CIA response to the attack that killed four Americans, including Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya. “60 Minutes,” though, based its reporting on a source who, it turned out, was not credible. He wasn’t there. He didn’t see anything.

Logan went on the air later to offer what she called a “correction.” She apologized for the report.

Now it seems that CBS News has taken the next step in ordering Logan to take a break, along with her producer, Max McClellan.

I wouldn’t bet on Logan’s return to “60 Minutes.” These types of high-profile “leaves of absence” usually result in termination.

The network’s next big task is to repair the damage done to its reputation and to a news program once considered to be the gold standard for broadcast journalism.