Tag Archives: 60 Minutes

media news

Not a normal Sunday for me

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On a normal Sunday evening in North Texas, I would be settling down for an hour of news analysis from “60 Minutes,” the heralded CBS News program that until this past week was a staple in my home for as long as I can remember.

No more, man. Not since the MAGA morons who run the network fired “60 Minutes” reporter Scott Pelley for telling the truth about what could be happening in this great country because of the whims and machinations of Donald Trump.

I’m going to have to figure out another way to spend the next hour or so. “60 Minutes” used to educate me on the story behind the story. It offered clear and unambiguous information on why these things mattered to us.

I’ve been treating myself to watching Pelley explain his view of what went down when he got word he was being canned. Trump called Pelley a “stiff” and a “low-IQ journalist” who “doesn’t care for his country.” Pelley told the interviewer he could buy the stiff description or the term Trump used to challenge the journalist’s smarts. He challenged Trump’s view that Pelley doesn’t love his country.

Pelleu said he’s “never worn the uniform, but I’ve been in combat” while covering war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait. “I’ve had people shoot at me,” he said, adding that he isn’t aware that Trump could make that assertion for himself.

He said journalists “love their country,” and declared that “democracy cannot exist without journalism.”

I am proud of Scott Pelley and I hope with all I have within me that he stays in the game of reporting our nation’s on-going story.

media news

Trump has ‘murdered’ ’60 Minutes’

At this very moment I am thinking of some of the titans of American broadcast journalism, men and women who sought the truth and told it to us without fear of recrimination.

You know who they are: Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Leslie Stahl, Bob Simon, Harry Reasoner, Morley Safer, Diane Sawyer, Dan Rather and now … Scott Pelley.

They all worked for “60 Minutes,” the premier TV news show that exposed everything — good and bad — about the government for which we pay. Pelley, a West Texas native, recently spoke aloud about the dangers of censorship and government overreach being inflicted by the Donald J. Trump administration, which seeks to control the news that’s being reported.

Pelley has lost his job at “60 Minutes,” along with reporters Cecelia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. This is a dark time for American journalism.

Pelley’s ouster hits me in a vaguely visceral way. I don’t know him, but I am good friends with a fellow West Texan who attended Texas Tech University with Pelley. My friend is now retired from journalism and he has told me a story or two about Pelley’s journey into the spotlight.

The First Amendment is supposed to guarantee a free and unfettered press. Congress “shall make no law” that seeks to control the media, the amendment declares. Trump has engineered the takeover of CBS News by MAGA-friendly execs. They have executed the removal of journalists they deem as threats to the POTUS. We are witnessing a disgraceful flouting of the very rights the First Amendment guarantees to maintin our representative democracy.

I just might join that movement to boycott CBS News.

local news, media news

Trump’s mind is officially a goner

You might want to write this down if you’re inclined,  but just keep it in mind as you ponder the future of Donald J. Trump’s political career.

It’s now as clear as it gets that the 45th and 47th POTUS has lost what used to pass as what was left of his mind. Why? Because the dimwit in chief wants to unilaterally pull the broadcast license of ABC News because it has the temerity to broadcast “negative news” about his administration.

Holy … moly, man!

Scott Pelley, a West Texan known as the voice of “60 Minutes,” a CBS News program, spoke recently in quoting one of our nation’s founders, James Madison. The fourth president said in 1800, Pelley recalled, that a “free press guarantees the rights of all the civil liberties we enjoy.” That is why the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the existence of a “free press.”

No matter their political party — be they Democratic-Federalist, Whig, Republican, Democrat — every U.S. president has accepted the role of a free press in holding our government accountable to the people they serve.

That’s every president until this one.

No president likes all the coverage they get from the free press. No matter their party affiliation, they hve griped aloud that the media are unfair. One could argue, indeed, that the media went too far in covering President Clinton’s impeachment, or that it labeled President George W. Bush a dim bulb during his time in the White House. Did any of our presidents seek openly to revoke the license of a media outlet just becausse they don’t shade the news coverage to suit their shallow-skinned egos? Nope!

Trump is an idiot disguised as a martyr for the MAGA movement he created and is now leading toward history’s trash heap.

Joe Biden, media news, medical news, political news

Pandemic is not ‘over’

OK, Mr. President, I feel the need to set the record straight on something you reportedly blurted out on national TV the other evening.

You told “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley that the coronavirus pandemic “is over.” Uh, Mr. President? It’s not over! It’s still with us. Pharmaceutical companies are producing new vaccines and boosters. They’re making them available for schmucks like me to take … and I damn sure am going to receive my second booster shot in very short order.

What troubles me about your careless assertion that the pandemic is “over” is that it well might cause too many Americans to let down their guard.

I also heard what you told Pelley about how so many more millions of Americans are getting vaccinated than there were when you took office. I also heard how you said that the death toll has dropped off dramatically. That’s all true.

However, if the pandemic is “over,” why make such a big deal of having this vaccine booster available?

To be clear, I am not going to join the right-wing cabal of critics in suggesting that you’re “out of touch” or that you don’t have the intellectual heft to stay on the job as president. I am with you, Mr. President.

It’s just that your words carry tremendous weight. I mean, jeez, don’t say things that reverberate the way public pronouncements do. That reverberation is amplified when it involves statements that have killed nearly 1 million Americans and caused enormous anxiety among millions of other Americans.

Look, Mr. President, a member of my immediate family became sickened right after Christmas 2020. We could have lost her! We didn’t. However, she isn’t right just yet.

Others, too, are suffering recurrences of the disease.

Businesses are still “strongly encouraging” masks. Hospitals are offering free instant exams to patients checking in with unrelated emergencies.

Does that sound like a pandemic that has run its course?

It’s still with us, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden, media news, national news, political news

Hey, Biden says ‘I intend’ to run

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(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

President Biden made some news tonight during his interview with CBS News’ Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes.”

The president kinda walked back his earlier statement in which he declared he would run for a second term in 2024. In the broadcast tonight, he said he “intends” to seek re-election but that a final decision hasn’t been made.

Hmm. Well, what does one say about that?

It tells me that Joe Biden is keeping his options as open as possible, given the topic that Pelley was discussing with the president.

His age. Biden is the oldest man ever to hold the office of POTUS. The president expressed supreme confidence in his ability to do the job. “Watch me,” he urged Pelley.

OK, I get it, Mr. President. I don’t have a personal issue with Biden walking back a bit his earlier declaration of a re-election effort. I think it’s smart for the president to say only what he intends to do.

A lot of things can happen. They do and this president, who’s been victimized by fate and tragedy in unimaginable ways, at this moment is no longer a declared candidate for president in 2024.

At least not yet.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

You must see this TV broadcast

Forgive me for shilling for a TV show. I can’t resist the urge to do so.

“60 Minutes” premiered its new season tonight by telling a single story during the course of its hourlong broadcast.

It told the story of heroism on 9/11. The heroes were the firefighters who answered the call when the jetliners flew into the Twin Towers.

If you are able to watch it On Demand, I encourage you to do so.

CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley interviewed many surviving firefighters, children of those who died in the chaos, colleagues of those who perished. They all told the same story. The firefighters who died when the towers collapsed did so because they were faithful to their oath to “protect and serve” the public.

These men and women accounted for 343 deaths on 9/11, the number of New York City firefighters who died because they ran into the flaming buildings.

It was a compelling news report on arguably the most compelling event of the 21st century.

If you can, I urge you to watch it. All of it. Moreover, be prepared to swallow hard.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

‘So much fake news’

Every time Donald John “Liar in Chief” Trump Sr. throws out the “fake news” allegation, I am reminded only of one thing: The president lacks any sense of self-awareness.

You know the type. These are people who accuse others of doing what they do. It’s a form of projection. Perhaps it’s a pathological condition.

Whatever it is, Trump’s got it. Or he lacks it.

The president fired off a tweet after the “60 Minutes” interview with the porn queen who says the two of them had a fling in 2006. He called it “fake news.”

Sure thing, Mr. President. I happen to believe her. She’s more credible than the president of the United States. Yes. A porn actress is more believable than the head of state. What in the world has become of this world?

And … why is that? Because the president is the king of fake news.

He perpetuated the lie that Barack Obama was not qualified to serve as president because he allegedly was born in another country. He lied about President Obama wiretapping his offices in Trump Tower after the 2016 election. He lied about witnessing “thousands of Muslims” cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11.

He lies without any sense of shame or guilt.

Through all of this, the president has the stones to slap the “fake news” label on any news story he deems to be negative.

Fake news are those items that are demonstrably false. They are made-up tales. They are lies put forward by those who cannot tell the truth. These tall tales are meant to defame others, to do damage to others’ credibility.

The president will never look inward while he accuses others of fomenting “fake news.” It is left to the rest of us to do it for him.

The Liar in Chief is a disgrace to his office.

national news

Porn queen and POTUS: We’re surprised? Um, no!

Many of us are now caught up in the Soap Opera of the Ages: Let’s call it the Porn Queen and the President.

Donald J. Trump is alleged to have had this extramarital affair with an adult film actress/director/producer. It allegedly occurred in 2006, a year or so after Trump married his third wife.

Then came word that Trump paid the porn queen 130 grand just before the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet.

Oh, but wait! The president denies the affair. So, why did his lawyer, Michael Cohen, shell out the dough?

To my mind, the most interesting aspect of this story is that million of us are caught up in this miserable story. I keep asking myself: Why?

Trump has bragged about his philandering. We have known for many years about his penchant for sexual predation. He wrote a book in which he told the world about how he fooled around on his first wife before marrying Wife No. 2.

During the height of the 2016 campaign, of course, we heard him tell the “Access Hollywood” host how he has grabbed women by the pu***, because his celebrity status gave him free rein to do whatever he damn well pleases with women.

To be honest, I don’t know what we’re going to learn about Trump in this latest alleged sexual escapade that we don’t know already or that we don’t already suspect about this guy’s conduct.

The porn queen has offered to give back the money, believing it will enable her to speak freely about whether she and the future president took a tumble a dozen years ago.

Trump’s legal team, meanwhile, is looking at how it might be able to stop the broadcast of an upcoming “60 Minutes” interview the porn star granted to Anderson Cooper.

Gosh. How is it that a president who denies any misbehavior with this individual would want to block a broadcast of her telling a story that he no doubt will call “fake news”?

The question of the day is this: Why in the name of sacred marital vows is anyone surprised that Donald Trump would be involved in such a matter?

So, the seedy soap opera continues.

education news

DeVos offers proof of why she is unfit for her job

It’s no wonder at all that Betsy DeVos needed a historic vice-presidential vote in the U.S. Senate to get her confirmed as the secretary of education.

You want evidence of it? Check out the “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night.

DeVos’s confirmation in 2017 ended with a 50-50 tie in the Senate; Vice President Pence cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm her nomination by Donald John Trump.

Oh, brother, she stumbled and bumbled her way through the interview with CBS News correspondent Leslie Stahl.

She actually acknowledged that she hasn’t visited “underperforming schools” to see for herself why they are in such bad shape. “Maybe I should,” DeVos told Stahl.

Uhh, yeah, do ya think?

I should note that DeVos is a champion for school choice. She also has no personal exposure to public education. She was educated in private schools; her children attend private schools; she can afford — as a billionaire — to send her children and grandchildren to any school they want.

This is the person the president chose to administer our public education system? Give me a break.

As the Washington Post reported: The secretary also said she is “not so sure exactly” how she became, as Stahl described her, “the most hated” member of President Trump’s Cabinet but believes that she is “misunderstood.”

I am not among those who hates DeVos. I am deeply concerned that this individual who has zero knowledge or experience relating to public education has been put in charge of the agency that is supposed to advocate on behalf of public schools, students and teachers.

DeVos has called “traditional public education” a “dead end.” How does that engender confidence in the secretary of public education? It doesn’t. Not in the least.

I encourage you to take a look at the exchange between Stahl and DeVos contained in the link that follows. Check it out here.

Yep, this is one of the “best people” Donald Trump pledged to populate his presidential administration.

Sheesh!

national news

Prior restraint? No can do, Mr. President

Now we have this: Reports have surfaced that Donald Trump’s legal team is researching ways to prevent “60 Minutes” from broadcasting an interview with the porn queen with whom the president allegedly had an affair in 2006.

Let’s see. What do we make of that?

I believe it tells me that there’s something to all this baloney about a six-figure sum of money being paid to keep the porn queen quiet.

The president denies that he had an affair with this woman, who’s making quite a bit of hay of late over the publicity that has swarmed all over her — and the president. The affair allegedly occurred about a year after Trump married his third wife, Melania, and right after his wife gave birth to the couple’s son.

The porn queen/adult film producer and director has filed a lawsuit claiming that the non-disclosure agreement is null and void because Trump never signed it. He didn’t even sign it using an alias he was using at the time … sheesh!

Thus, she contends, she is able to talk all she wants about whether she had an affair with the man who would become president of the United States, despite being paid $130,000 in hush money by Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

One more thing.

The First Amendment protects a “free press.” In the 21st century, that also includes broadcast media. The U.S. Constitution prevents government from interfering in the media’s effort to do its job.

I shall add that Trump is always the president. He is the head of government. He cannot compartmentalize these issues.

Prior restraint of the media, Mr. President, is not an option.