Tag Archives: 60 Minutes

This Statement Is Going To Have Repercussions!

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On Monday, Townhall posted an article about a recent statement by President Biden that is going to create some problems for those pulling the levers of power in Washington.

The article reports:

President Biden declared the COVID-19 pandemic “over” during an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” an acknowledgement that prompted anger among liberals and questions from conservatives.

Noting that it’s the first Detroit Auto Show in three years, host Scott Pelley asked the president if that was a sign the pandemic was over.

While noting the virus continues to be “a problem,” Biden admitted, “the pandemic is over.”

“If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape, and so I think it’s changing, and I think [the Detroit Auto show resuming] is a perfect example of it,” he added.

The article notes the problems resulting from this statement:

Conservatives, meanwhile, pointed out there is no justification for any Covid restrictions to be in place anymore or any vaccine or mask mandates to remain. He also just upended his administration’s argument for its student loan bailout. 

The article concludes:

According to Politico, the statement was not part of his planned remarks and “caught several of his own health officials by surprise.”

There were several other statements made during the “60 Minutes” interview that the Biden administration staff is working hard to clean up. On Monday The American Thinker posted an article detailing some of the other missteps by President Biden during the interview. The missteps include issues such as America’s policy on Taiwan, inflation, the raid on Mar-a-Lago and last of all, his own fitness for office.

 

Telling The Truth Causes An Uproar

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The latest adolescent fad being promoted on social media is transgenderism. Unfortunately it is a fad that can do permanent damage to a young person who simply follows what he or she sees on social media. Recently “60 Minutes” did a segment about state regulations on transgenderism and included people who as teenagers underwent medical procedures to change their sex and then regretted it later.

Today Legal Insurrection posted an article about the reaction to the “60 Minutes” segment.

The article notes:

A recent 60 Minutes segment talked about red states denying hormones and surgery to transgender youth. However, the news program made the grave mistake of including a part about young people who regret transitioning.

The left is furious that 60 Minutes included dissenting voices.

This is one of the stories included in the “60 Minutes” piece:

One young woman described her experience after she went on hormones, had her breasts removed, and then detransitioned all in one year. Transcript via the Daily Wire:

Lesley Stahl: Did the therapist not question you about how deep the feeling was and what it was stemming from?

Grace Lidinsky-Smith: She didn’t go — really go into what my gender dysphoria might’ve been stemming from. We only did a few sessions.

Lesley Stahl (NARRATION): Because she was over 18 and didn’t need parental consent, she says she merely signed an informed consent form at a clinic and got hormone shots.

Grace Lidinsky-Smith: They asked me, “So, why do you wanna go on testosterone?” And I said, “Well, being a woman just isn’t working for me anymore.” And they said, “Okay.”

Lesley Stahl: So, that was that. You got your prescription for testosterone?

Grace Lidinsky-Smith: Uh-huh. Yup.

Lesley Stahl (NARRATION): Just four months after she started testosterone, she says she was approved for a mastectomy, what’s called top surgery, that she told us was traumatic.

Lesley Stahl: You know, I’m kinda surprised because, based on everything you’ve said up to now, I would’ve thought you’d have a great sense of relief.

Grace Lidinsky-Smith: I started to have a really disturbing sense that like a part of my body was missing, almost a ghost limb feeling about being like, there’s something that should be there. And the feeling really surprised me but it was really hard to deny.

Lesley Stahl (NARRATION):And so she detransitioned by going off testosterone and then went back to the clinic and, she says, complained to the doctor that the process didn’t follow the WPATH guidelines.

Grace Lidinsky-Smith: I can’t believe that I transitioned and detransitioned, including hormones and surgery, in the course of, like, less than one year. It’s completely crazy.

The article also includes one reaction to the segment:

Jezebel called the report an “attack” on trans kids:

60 Minutes’ Segment About Republican Attacks On Trans Kids Was Itself an Attack On Trans Kids

This is not an issue that needs both-sidesing. But on Sunday, CBS’s 60 Minutes did something even worse—the primetime show decided to air a segment that, while ostensibly addressing the Republican-led assault on trans young people’s health care, ended up focusing heavily on the favorite topic of conservatives who would like nothing more than for trans people to not exist, and who wish to paint transition as a painful, regret-suffused process—people who have detransitioned.

First of all, Republicans are not attacking trans kids, they are simply trying to prevent teenagers from doing something irreversible during a period in their lives when their decision-making process is not fully developed. Secondly, this is not health care–it is serious surgery that cannot be reversed and needs to be entered into with extreme care. In a few years there will be many young adults walking around seriously regretting what they have done with no way to correct their mistake. That is sad.

How To Handle A Biased Media

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The Gateway Pundit reported yesterday that President Trump will release the full video of his interview with Lesley Stahl. The interview was conducted for “Sixty Minutes.”

The article notes:

President Trump sat down with Lesley Stahl from “60 Minutes” for a much anticipated interview that will air on Sunday — ten days before the November election.

“60 Minutes” is notorious for cutting and editing their interviews with conservatives to make them look their worst.

Please follow the link to the article to watch the entire interview.

Why Does The Establishment (Republicans and Democrats) Hate Donald Trump?

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Yesterday Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at American Greatness titled, “Why Do They Hate Him So?” The article analyzes the reasons that President Trump is opposed by both the political left and the establishment right.

The article states:

Again, why the unadulterated hatred? For the small number of NeverTrumpers, of course, Trump’s crudity in speech and crassness in manner nullify his accomplishments: the unattractive messenger has fouled an otherwise tolerable message.

While they recognize in the abstract that the randy JFK, the repugnant LBJ, and the horny Bill Clinton during their White House tenures were far grosser in conduct than has been Donald Trump, they either assume presidential ethics should have evolved or they were not always around to know of past bad behavior first hand, or believe Trump’s crude language is worse than prior presidents’ crude behavior in office.

The article continues:

Had Donald Trump in his first month as president declared that he was a centrist Republican —as many suspicious Never Trumpers predicted that he would, true to past form—and promoted cap-and-trade and solar and wind federal subsidies, tabled pipeline construction and abated federal leasing for gas and oil production, stayed in the Iran nuclear deal and Paris Climate Accord, appointed judges in the tradition of John Paul Stevens and David Souter, praised the “responsible” Palestinian leaders, pursued “comprehensive immigration reform” as a euphemism for blanket amnesties, then Trump would be treated largely as a George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush: hated, of course, but not obsessively so.

More importantly, had Trump just collapsed or stagnated the economy, as predicted by the likes of Paul Krugman and Larry Summers, he would now be roundly denounced, but again not so vilified, given his political utility for the Left in 2020 as a perceived Herbert Hoover-esque scapegoat.

Had Trump kept within the media and cultural sidelines by giving interviews to “60 Minutes,” speaking at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, bringing in a few old Republican hands to run the staff or handle media relations like a David Gergen or Andrew Card, Trump would have been written off as a nice enough dunce.

But Trump did none of that. So, the hatred of the media, the Left, the swamp, and the celebrity industry is predicated more on the successful Trump agenda. He is systematically undoing what Barack Obama wrought, in the manner Obama sought to undo with his eight years the prior eight years of George W. Bush.

But whereas the Obama economy stagnated and his foreign policy was seen by adversaries and rivals as a rare occasion to recalibrate the world order at American’s expense, Trump mostly did not fail—at least not yet. We are currently in an economic boom while most of the world economy abroad is inert. Had the economy just crashed as predicted, the Trump agenda would have been discredited and he would be written off a pitiful fool rather than an existential monster.

Again, hatred arises at what Trump did even more than what he says or how he says it.

The obvious conclusion:

The bipartisan Washington establishment? If an outsider Manhattan wheeler-dealer without military or political experience can at last call an appeased China to account, can avoid a Libyan fiasco, can acknowledge that America is tired of a 18-year slog in Afghanistan when others would not, or believes ISIS thrived as a result of prior arcane restrictive U.S. rules of engagement—and he is proven largely right—then what does that say about the credentialed experts who dreamed up the bipartisan conventional wisdom that with a few more concessions China would eventually become Palo Alto or that Libya would bloom at the heart of the Arab Spring?

The Left detests Trump for a lot of reasons besides winning the 2016 election and aborting the progressive project. But mostly they hate his guts because he is trying and often succeeding to restore a conservative America at a time when his opponents thought that the mere idea was not just impossible but unhinged.

And that is absolutely unforgivable.

Be prepared for a very nasty year before the election in 2020. There are a lot of very unhinged people in politics and in the media.

“The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.”

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Judicial Watch released the following Press Release yesterday:

DOJ Docs Show Rosenstein Advising Mueller ‘the Boss’ Doesn’t Know About Their Communications — Judicial Watch

Rosenstein docs also show ‘off the record’ leaks to 60 Minutes, The New York Times and The Washington Post around and on the date of Mueller’s appointment.

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch released 145 pages of Rod Rosenstein’s communications that include a one-line email from Rod Rosenstein to Robert Mueller stating, “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions” and “off the record” emails with major media outlets around the date of Mueller’s appointment.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the DOJ failed to respond to a September 21, 2018, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00481)). Judicial Watch seeks:

Any and all e-mails, text messages, or other records of communication addressed to or received by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein between May 8, 2017, and May 22, 2017.

The time period referred to in this suit is critical. On May 8, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memo to President Trump recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired. The next day, President Trump fired Comey. Just three days later, on May 12, Rosenstein sent an email assuring Robert Mueller that “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.”

In a May 16, 2017 email, sent the day before Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein emailed former Bush administration Deputy Attorney General and current Kirkland & Ellis Partner, Mark Filip stating, “I am with Mueller. He shares my views. Duty Calls.  Sometimes the moment chooses us.”

And on May 17 Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Also, during the same time period, between May 8 and May 17, Rosenstein met with then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other senior Justice Department FBI officials to discuss wearing a wire and invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump.

The documents also show that, again during the same time period, Rod Rosenstein was in direct communication with reporters from 60 Minutes, The New York Times and The Washington Post. In an email exchange dated May 2017, Rosenstein communicated with New York Times reporter Rebecca Ruiz to provide background for this article about himself. Ruiz emailed Rosenstein a draft of the article, and he responded with off-the-record comments and clarifications.

  • In an email exchange on May 17, 2017, the day of Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein exchanged emails with 60 Minutes producer Katherine Davis in which he answered off-the-record questions about Mueller’s scope of authority and chain of command:

Rosenstein: “Off the record: This special counsel is a DOJ employee. His status is similar to a US Attorney.”

Davis: “Good call on Mueller. Although I obviously thought you’d be great at leading the investigation too.”

  • On May 17, 2017, in an email exchange with Washington Post journalist Sari Horwitz and the subject line “Special Counsel” Rosenstein and Horwitz exchanged:

 Rosenstein: “At some point, I owe you a long story. But this is not the right time for me to talk to anybody.”

Horwitz: “Now, I see why you couldn’t talk today! Obviously, we’re writing a big story about this. Is there any chance I could talk to you on background about your decision?”

“These astonishing emails further confirm the corruption behind Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The emails also show a shockingly cozy relationship between Mr. Rosenstein and anti-Trump media reporters.”

On September 11, Judicial Watch released 14 pages of records from the Department of Justice showing officials’ efforts in responding to media inquiries about DOJ/FBI talks allegedly invoking the 25th Amendment to “remove” President Donald Trump from office and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offering to wear a “wire” to record his conversations with the president.

On September 23, Judicial Watch released a two-page memo, dated May 16, 2017, by then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe detailing how then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire into the Oval Office “to collect additional evidence on the president’s true intentions.” McCabe writes that Rosenstein said he thought it was possible because “he was not searched when he entered the White House.”

In case you had any doubt that this has been a planned sabotage of President Trump.

Unlikely To Appear In The Mainstream Media

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Yesterday Newsbusters posted a story about an important story that the mainstream media seems to be ignoring.

In an interview on 60 Minutes which aired on October 11th, President Obama was asked by Steve Kroft if he was aware of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. The President replied, “No.”

The article reports:

Unfortunately for Obama, as the Times reported, the latest release of Hillary Clinton emails shows that the two corresponded via email. The State Department then gave the White House a heads-up before releasing them to congressional investigators, giving the administration the opportunity to quash their release:

Mr. Obama’s direct correspondence with Mrs. Clinton was forwarded by the State Department to the White House, which has decided against release, a move likely to intensify the struggle between Mrs. Clinton and congressional Republicans, who have pressed for disclosure of her emails as part of an investigation into the administration’s handling of the Benghazi events.

So how could Obama have answered “no” when CBS’s Steve Kroft asked him “Did you know about Hillary Clinton’s use of private email server?”

President Obama’s Press Secretary, Josh Earnest. has stated:

Mr. Obama told CBS News in March that he learned about Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server “the same time everybody else learned it — through news reports.” Mr. Earnest later clarified that the president was aware that she sometimes used a private email address but did not know the details about how the server was set up.

The writers of the article at Newsbusters want to know–”
how Obama could have stated that “I don’t think it posed a national security problem” if he, as Earnest admitted, “did not know the details about how the server was set up.” Interesting question.

The article finally states:

The President has been caught in a obvious falsehood, and has also been caught making an assessment of the presence or absence of a “national security problem” without have the requisite knowledge to make that assessment.

This would be a screaming-headlines story in a Republican or conservative presidential administration, but it has barely been noticed elsewhere in the establishment press. For example, the Associated Press has no related story; in fact, it has no story whatsoever on the latest Clinton email release.

Another example of the reason for the alternative media.

Did CBS Report The News Or Manipulate The News?

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President Obama was re-elected in 2012. He won. The Republican Candidate was portrayed as an out-of-touch rich man who caused people to die of cancer. When he warned of the dangers of Russian aggression, Mitt Romney was told, “The 80’s called, they want their foreign policy back.” It was a big joke. And when Mitt Romney pointed out that it took President Obama 14 days to admit the Benghazi attack was terrorism President Obama balked, saying he did it that day.

Well, CBS News edited out part of a ‘60 Minutes‘ interview with President Obama on the day after the Benghazi attacks. During the interview, the President stated, “Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved. but, obviously, it was an attack on Americans.” 

Yesterday, Breitbart.com posted an article about the incident. The article reports:

(Investigative Journalist Sharyl) Attkisson said, “Let me say that that exchange should have been pulled out immediately after the debate, which would have been very newsy at the time. It was exclusive to CBS. It would have to me proven Romney’s point against Obama. But that clip was kept secret.”

“I was covering Benghazi, nobody told me we had it and directed me from the ‘Evening News’ to a different clip of the same interview to give the impression that the president had done the opposite. And it was only right before the election that somebody kind of leaked out the transcript to others of us as CBS and we were really shocked. We saw that was something very unethical done to have kept that up.”

She added, “The ‘Evening News’ people who had access to that transcript, according to the emails that I saw when it was sent from ’60 Minutes’ to ‘Evening News’ the very day it was taken, they, in my view, skipped over it, passed it up, kept it secret. And I think that was because they were trying to defend the president and they thought that would be harmful to him.”

I don’t know whether airing that exchange would have changed any votes. I don’t know how well-informed the people who voted for President Obama were. I do know, however, that it was unethical to edit that exchange out of the interview. It prevented the American voters from getting a true picture of the events at Benghazi and the President’s reaction to those events.

 

Why We Need Alternative Media

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Today’s Washington Free Beacon posted a story about a CBS News report aired on  “60 Minutes” that blamed Israel for the persecution and ensuing exodus of Palestinian Christians.

The story blamed Israeli security policies for the fact that Christians are leaving the traditionally Christian areas such as Nazareth and Bethlehem.

CBN News painted a much more accurate picture of what is really happening in a story  posted in December:

Unpredictable — that’s how Israeli author and human rights lawyer Justus Weiner describes the plight of Christians in Bethlehem and the West Bank.

For years they’ve suffered from human rights violations such as land theft, beatings, and even forced marriages between Christian women and Muslim men.

The worst persecution has come against converts to Christianity.

“If they were born Muslim but they decided to find Jesus, this is like being a traitor to God,” Weiner told CBN News. “There’s very substantial chance they’ll be beaten, forced to leave the country, or killed.”

Somehow those facts were overlooked in the CBS News report.

The Washington Free Beacon points out:

Experts on the region noted that Palestinian Christians live in fear of their Muslim neighbors, who routinely intimidate them and sometimes carry out violent attacks. For this reason, it is incredibly dangerous to criticize the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which control the areas they live in.

“As a persecuted minority, if [Christians] shift the blame to Israel, they take the heat off of themselves,” said Jordanna McMillan, director of outreach for the International Israel Allies Caucus Foundation, a group that unites pro-Israel advocates across the religious spectrum.  “‘60 Minutes’ doesn’t understand the intricacies of the issue.”

We have seen the way that Muslims treat Christians when they take over a country, e.g. the Coptic Christians in Egypt are fleeing the country because they fear for their safety. Why wasn’t CBS News able to look at the entire picture of the Middle East to see what was happening in Israel? Israel is the only country in the Middle East that allows true freedom of religion. Even some of the countries that we regard as free or as friendly to America will not allow tourists with Israeli passports or Israeli visa stamps to visit their countries.

I don’t know if the report on 60 Minutes was simple ignorance or Anti-Semitism, but either way, there should be a more balanced report aired to counter what has already been reported. Again, the Internet proved its value in exposing erroneous reporting.

 

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Received In My E-mail Tonight

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November 16, 2011

LIEBERMAN, COLLINS TO HOLD HEARING
 ON INSIDER TRADING LAWS AND CONGRESS

60 Minutes Story Sparks Examination

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced Wednesday they would hold a hearing to examine how insider trading laws apply to Congress.

 The hearing, requested by Committee Member Scott Brown, R-Mass., and sparked by a 60 Minutes report, is intended to clarify the laws and rules that govern members of Congress who may profit personally from non-public information they learn in the course of their work.

“Insider trading by members of Congress – if it occurs — is a serious breach of the public trust,” said Lieberman. “No one in Congress should be enriching themselves based on information to which the general public has no access. Our hearing will set the record straight about how existing laws and ethics rules apply to Congress and whether they are sufficient to prevent unethical market trading.”

 Collins said: “Elected office is a place for public service, not personal gain. We have a duty to examine and address practices that can create the appearance of wrongdoing or undermine the public’s confidence in decisions made by Congress.

“I appreciate Senator Scott Brown’s leadership on this important issue. We need to assure the American people that the decisions we make are decisions of integrity, in which their interests are put first.”

 Senator Brown has introduced legislation intended to prevent members of Congress from profiting on information to which only they are privy. That bill has been referred to HSGAC. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., will introduce similar legislation soon. House members have introduced similar bills.
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