I was going to mention the attempt by the Axis media to cover for CBS in the epic betrayal of the American public and its journalistic duties it engineered in the Harris “60 Minutes” interview. Now I’m glad I waited. The entire Axis is trying to spin this into what it is not, and what it is is a flaming example of how hard the news media is working to foil democracy and bring down Donald Trump, as it has been since the 2016 election.
First, there were initially headlines describing “accusations” of unethical editing of Harris’s interview, or “Trump complaints about “alleged” editing. Those were lies, of course: this was res ipsa loquitur all the way: “60 Minutes” aired one version of Harris answering a question that showed her in typical incoherent Gabby Johnson mode (“Rarit!”), and another version with the identical video of the question and a completely different response, that is, a relatively coherent one by Harris.” “60 minutes” did this. There’s no “alleged” about it.
Then the news media shifted into a different strategy, because, to be blunt, the American news media is scum.
Part of the strategy is to ignore the story and hope it goes away. The New York Times hasn’t written about the “60 minutes” in-kind contribution to the Harris campaign at all yet, and the story has been out there for four days. At all!
You know what? I’ve had it. Anyone who tries to argue here that the Times isn’t a dangerous, sinister propaganda mouthpiece for Democrats is also scum, and I’m taking the gloves off. A smug asshole who was banned here long ago keeps sending in asinine illicit posts defending the Times and accusing me of bias for pointing out reality. Screw him, and anyone tempted to take a similar road on my ethics site. The New York Times sits on a story that reveals that an iconic name in American news is now little more than a cheap Democratic propaganda agent, and this isn’t news that’s fit to print?
For the Times to bury CBS’s cheat is almost as unethical as the cheat itself.
The Washington Post is taking the other approach. The Post wants to make the story about Donald Trump, who was the victim of the “60 Minutes” Harris trick. We see this deflection device all the time, it’s the “Republicans pounce” cheat. Jim Treacher neatly described it four years ago, and Instapundit has encored hit regularly since:
Low-life Rolling Stone headlined the issue this way: “A Pouty Trump Cancels ’60 Minutes’ Interview, Calls for CBS to Lose Broadcast License.” After what CBS did to bolster Harris, Trump would have been certifiably mad to agree to let “60 Minutes” manipulate his interview. A Presidential candidate is “pouting” when he objects to a major news show deliberately altering an interview video to help his opponent? See above. Scum.
The Post headline is “Trump calls for CBS to lose broadcasting rights over Harris interview.” Donald Trump wasn’t involved in the “60 Minutes” false editing incident in any way: it was all CBS and the Harris campaign.
Aside: The Harris campaign is denying that it was involved in the cheat. “We do not control CBS’s production decisions and refer questions to CBS,” a Harris campaign aide told multiple outlets including Fox News and Variety. Hilariously, any response by the Harris campaign in such matters resembles the old puzzle about the two tribes on an island where one tribe always lies and the other always tells the truth. 2024 Democrats, and the Harris campaign particularly, lie constantly. It’s answer regarding whether it was complicit in the “60 Minutes” scam would be identical whether it was or was not conspiring with CBS. You can guess what I think, presumably.
But our disgusting news media is trying to make Trump’s typically excessive reaction the issue. Naturally, the Biden FCC Chair joined the effort, as Jessica Rosenworcel denounced Trump’s call for CBS to lose its license over it flagrant attempt to deceive voters.
“While repeated attacks against broadcast stations by the former President may now be familiar, these threats against free speech are serious and should not be ignored,” Rosenworcel said in a statement. “As I’ve said before, the First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy. The FCC does not and will not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage.”
Waaaaait a minute! That statement itself is deceit: Trump wasn’t complaining “simply” because he disagreed with or disliked the “60 Minutes” interview. He complained, and rightly so, because an organization that has its First Amendment protection because the Founders regarded a free press as essential to an informed public decided to use that privilege to do the opposite: to mislead and deceive the public. This wasn’t a matter of a news source criticizing a candidate, and it wasn’t a difference of opinion, as we see in the Left’s definition of “misinformation.” [Misinformation: “Opinions or characterizations that do not support the progressive agenda, Democratic policies, or Leftist narratives.”] This was unethical conduct, designed to deceive for the political gain of one political party over another, and the evidence is concrete and irrefutable.
The rotting of our journalism and its revolting descent into Soviet-style one-party propaganda is getting worse by the hour. Defeating Harris and the Democrats decisively is almost as important for the message it will send to our news media as for its rejection of the totalitarian tactics its favorite party has been embracing. This behavior by CBS and its complicit news media fellow travelers can not and must not be seen as successful. It must be rejected hard. It is the duty of Americans to reject it hard.
Ethics Alarms 
What would be wrong woth prosecuting these people for violating campaign finance laws.
That exact question was asked by one of the appellate judges in the Trump NY civil fraud case
In part I, I posited the idea that this all may be perfectly acceptable now that propaganda against the US population was legalized under Obama. If the US government paid them to do this, it could be entirely legal propaganda.
Is it just my imagination, or is everyone in the media and all levels of government a smug, dyed-in-the-wool, lefty authoritarian, verging on a revolutionary?
No, and they have been for a long, long time.
Isn’t it “A Friend” who’s the guy dive bombing all the time about how wonderful the NYT is? Surely, he’s a paid, NYT social media monitor. No one on their own time would be so relentless in making such preposterous statements that can only be described as “it isn’t what it is” talking points, aka, pathetic, transparent and baseless denials, aka lies.
No, I know “A Friend,” I know his name, I’ve met him, and he’s local in the D.C. area. He’s not paid, he’s this way for free.
Truly remarkable.
I cannot for the life of me figure why the MSM and the Left are so terrified of Trump. Is it because they can’t control him? Is it because he communicates directly with the electorate and sidesteps the roles of the media in delivering information? Is he a threat to the bureaucratic state (some say deep state, but I call it the entrenched bureaucratic state – after all they stated that his Iran policy did not reflect the policy of the state department . . .)?
I get that he says mean and obnoxious things. I get that he calls people names and ridicules them over irrelevant issues, as a way of needling his adversaries. I get that he calls illegal aliens terrible names and has the temerity to assert that immigration laws should be enforced but I cannot see the existential threat to democracy. He is not beholden to the endless war machine. His “US interests first platform” seems fairly reasonable for someone who wants to the US President. Maybe I am blind, obtuse, or simply not that bright.
During his first term, he did not govern as a totalitarian. Considering his daughter and her husband are practicing Jews, and his relationship with Israel, he is not a Nazi wannabee. He has promoted minorities and women to high positions in his businesses, which would indicate that he is not a racist or a woman hater. Yeah, his tax policies may benefit multinational businesses but they also benefit the local convenience stores and restaurants, who collectively employ a huge part of the population. His tax policies benefit Musk, Bezos, Cuban, et al, but they also benefit retirement accounts and stock portfolios, many of which contain retirement accounts for middle class workers.
So, what is it and why have there been at least three assassination attempts?
jvb
“I get that he calls illegal aliens terrible names and has the temerity to assert that immigration laws should be enforced but I cannot see the existential threat to democracy. He is not beholden to the endless war machine. His “US interests first platform” seems fairly reasonable for someone who wants to the US President. “
I don’t see why you don’t look at what you wrote. Why did we go along with the globalization agenda? We did it because it made the ultra wealthy few even wealthier. It destroyed the middle class and the common people. So, why did the government do it? Is it because they don’t work for you? Trump has always loved America. You can look at old interviews from the 90’s and even 80’s where he criticizes the globalist agenda. Trump also makes his money from people in the US. For Trump to make money, Americans need to be prosperous. To make America prosperous again, he has to make the globalist much, much poorer. The globalists kick that money back to the bureaucrats. You cold say that Trump is doing this just for himself, but people don’t go through 3 assassination attempts to become MORE of a billionaire.
When you look at US presidents, how many were president, how many were puppets, and how many were connected to the deep state? There is a memo from J. Edgar Hoover that detailed that the day after JFK was assassinated, he briefed 2 people on the foreign policy implications: William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency and George H.W. Bush of the CIA. The NY mob ran Arkansas from Hot Springs. A Hot Springs man became president and then left the White House to go straight to the home office. It appears that investment banks paid Obama to be a ‘community organizer’ from the time he left law school until he became president and once he became president they dictated his cabinet picks. When he left the presidency, he seems to have been given one or more oceanfront mansions. He received the ‘Robin Master’s Estate’ in Hawaii from a ‘friend’ in 2015 and demolished it in 2020 despite the old Turtle Pool being on the National Historic Register. Now, all the press in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 said that it wasn’t true, the Obamas didn’t own it. Now that it is 2024 however…
https://www.tmz.com/2022/02/22/barack-obama-mansion-hawaii-sea-wall-oahu/
Trump was an independent and a threat to the cabal that runs the country. This is a threat that is so great that destroying the trust in the media, elections, the courts, and society is worth it.
1. They have been vilifying Trump so long they believe their own mythology.
2. It is class bigotry as well. Trump was fun when he was just a high profile, colorful real estate and casino entrepreneur, but he was too nouveau riche to be in the club. This is the reason people like George Will and Bill Kristol hate him so irrationally.
3.It is also payback for foiling Obama and Hillary when the Left was so sure a third Obama term was guaranteed.
4. But the fact that the Clintons, Cheneys, McConnells and Bushes all hate Trump tells you all you want to know. These aging family dynasties are the epitome of the incestuous, cynical, pocket-lining cabal that is actively hostile to normal Americans.
A number of things:
I think going forward the Dems will campaign against every single Republican by declaring them “an existential threat to democracy.” They know he’s incapable of introducing the First Reich. They just play up the fear stuff to scare people into voting for them.
Trump is an outsider, a business guy. He’s not a life-long vote and money-grubbing politician. Business guys are supposed to give money to politicians, they’re not supposed to beat them at their own game. They want Trump out of their sandbox, and they want to make an example of him so in the future, businesspeople will think long and hard before they dare to go into politics.
The entirety of public employees and government officials and bureaucrats are of a single mind. They are simply rent seekers. Trump is a threat to their very existence and livelihood. The same goes for most of the media.
Intellectuals hate him because he’s not all in with reshaping American society and culture. He actually like the United States and wants it to flourish.
This is it exactly.
My questions were more tongue in cheek/rhetorical because they answer themselves. Your comments, though, clarify what is happening. You are spot on.
jvb
Now, the NYT is trying to claim that noticing that Kamala Harris plagiarized large sections of her book is ‘racist’. I guess because the NYT claims that West Asians have a genetic predisposition to stealing other people’s intellectual property, pointing out when someone with West Asian DNA commits plagiarism is racist.
Maybe the NYT is racist for thinking that minorities can’t come up with their own ideas.
CBS doubles down… https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/60-minutes-statement/
Surrrre… tossing the rambling non-answer in favor of a brief and concise one is the normal procedure when switching from a teaser to a much longer 21-minute format. Sure.
And nice to point out three times that this is actually Trump’s fault.