Tag: mainstream media

Here’s What’s Wrong With the Shelved 60 Minutes story ‘Inside CECOT.’

I viewed the version of the 60 Minutes report “Inside CECOT” that was distributed to Canada’s Global TV app and circulated online, then pulled due to copyright claims. Based on my viewing of that version, here’s my critique.

Bari Weiss was correct: the story wasn’t ready for air.

Read on for details.

By way of background, the 60 Minutes segment titled “Inside CECOT,” reported by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, was originally scheduled to air on CBS on December 21. But editor-in-chief Bari Weiss abruptly pulled it just hours before broadcast saying that more work needed to be done.

The report investigated El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a massive maximum-security mega-prison built in 2022 under President Nayib Bukele as part of his aggressive anti-gang crackdown.

The prison is known for harsh conditions including allegations of torture, no outdoor access, and overcrowding.

The 60 Minutes report focused on the Trump administration’s deportation of over 250 mostly Venezuelan men to CECOT under a paid agreement with El Salvador, invoking wartime powers to shortcut normal due process. The 60 Minutes reporter interviewed two men who claim to have served time in CECOT but were released. They described enduring months of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.

CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss postponed the segment, citing the need for additional reporting and stating it did not sufficiently advance prior coverage.

Alfonsi and her supporters allege Weiss’s decision was politically motivated.

After watching the report as edited, here’s my feedback on why it wasn’t ready for prime time.

Considering the subject matter, the story needed to explain:

  • How 60 Minutes located the two alleged former CECOT inmates interviewed. If the two men were brought to 60 Minutes by the human rights group featured, that needed to be disclosed.
  • How 60 Minutes confirmed, firsthand, that the men were CECOT inmates. If 60 Minutes did not confirm this critical fact, firsthand, that needed to be disclosed, as well as what assurances the reporter felt she had that the men are who they were presented themselves to be.

Other shortfalls that needed to be addressed or admitted in the story:

The bulk of the story was based on the word of an illegal immigrant with no stated independent verification of his key claims. It’s akin to taking the word of an alleged murderer that he’s innocent and a good guy who’s being unfairly persecuted for no reason. Maybe it’s true, but certainly the claims deserve to be treated with a dose of rational skepticism. In the 60 Minutes report: they were not.

60 Minutes characterized the main interviewee as a good guy with no criminal background or gang affiliation, based on his own word and the supposed absence of his name in a gang database.

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The New York Times ignores an essential part of the Jeffrey Epstein story — Israel

If you want to understand why conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein flourish, then you must read the interminable investigation the New York Times published, purporting to explain how Jeffrey Epstein clawed himself to the pinnacle of the financial/political/social world. “The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich” concludes that Epstein was the greatest conman and swindler that ever lived, and charmed the pants off of every powerful man he met. Some of his marks still curse Epstein for fleecing them. But the paradigm of the article is the execs at Bear Stearns back in the 70s who found out that the former math teacher at Dalton School had invented college degrees from “two California universities” but didn’t fire him because they wanted to give a humble kid from the outer boros a second chance. 

“You lied about your education,” [senior exec Michael] Tennenbaum said.

“Yes, I know,” Epstein calmly replied. He had never graduated from college. Tennenbaum recalls being disarmed by the admission. Decades later, he would regard it as an example of Epstein’s ability to manipulate his marks — in this case, him.

“Why did you do it?” Tennenbaum stammered.

Without an impressive degree or two, Epstein said, “I knew nobody would give me a chance.”

This resonated with Tennenbaum.

That’s a great story, and there is great reporting in this article. But the premise of the article is a stupid myth the NYT wants to believe– That Epstein was just the canniest, boldest con man that ever lived, and he left everybody swooning. The talented Mr Ripley. 

It’s a myth not because Epstein was not a bold and crafty con man – no doubt he was. But even a conman can have an ethos. Look at Gatsby, a mobster with romance. Look at Trump’s fascistic populism. And Jeffrey Epstein had an ethos that he played on over and over again as his racket grew; and that ethos was the love of Israel in the rising Jewish meritocratic establishment of the 70s. 

Almost every player in the Times story is a Jewish success story who lobbied for Israel in prestigious circles, from Dershowitz to Larry Summers, Leon Black, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, and Epstein’s most famous associations, Robert Maxwell and Les Wexner.  

Love of Israel was a lead criterion for inclusion in Epstein’s circle. I don’t think Epstein’s “marks” were even fooled by him. They knew he was a conman who played fast and loose. But they also knew that the Israel lobby has a need for charmers who break the rules, so they looked the other way.   

Epstein did numerous chores for Israel that investigative sites have documented and the Times does not touch: he helped Israel broker financial deals with neighbors, he had an Israeli spy living in his house for a time, and he had a close relationship with former Israeli PM Ehud Barak that included business ventures and politics in Israel.

“It’s well past time to ask questions about the billionaire pedophile’s links to Israel,” Jacobin says. 

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The Swalwell Files: Fake News Reuters Scrambles to Save Swalwell, Still No California Address, Still Dead Broke

California Congressman Eric Swalwell has accumulated an extraordinary record of controversy: his well-documented association with the Chinese intelligence asset known as “Fang Fang,” his removal from the House Intelligence Committee over national-security concerns, and his unforgettable on-air incident during a 2019 Hardball with Chris Matthews interview.

These episodes alone raise questions about judgment. But recent disclosures expose something even more fundamental.

Eric Swalwell appears unable to meet the basic legal, financial, and residency requirements of the office he now seeks, Governor of California.

As I reported in The Gateway Pundit (‘DISQUALIFIED! – Congressman Eric Swalwell Names Washington DC Home as ‘Principal Residence’), Swalwell’s own mortgage filings designate his Washington, D.C. property as his principal residence.

Under Article V, Section 2 of the California Constitution and California and Elections Code §349, that admission alone disqualifies him from running for governor.

Five years of residency prior to an election is a constitutional requirement, and Swalwell’s Deed of Trust in D.C. and lack of any California address disqualify him.

The situation escalated when Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte referred Swalwell to the Department of Justice for potential mortgage fraud.

Swalwell responded by filing a civil lawsuit against Pulte and FHFA, absurdly claiming in the lawsuit that his mortgage listed on the public database mytax.dc.gov was private, while falsely claiming he included an affidavit with his mortgage claiming it was only his wife’s home.

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‘A Lie And Propaganda’: Gabbard Fact-Checks Reuters’ Russia Scaremongering In Real Time

On Saturday afternoon, Reuters posted an anonymously-sourced story pushing the idea that Russia is bent on reconstituting the Soviet Union. Before the metaphorical ink had dried, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard pounced, condemning the story as “a lie and propaganda” on behalf of “warmongers” seeking to derail President Trump’s drive to end the long and bloody Ukraine war.  

From selling the Iraq invasion to achieving a news and social media lockdown on Hunter Biden’s laptop, the Deep State has long used major media outlets like Reuters, the New York Times and Washington Post to inject their agenda-advancing narratives into America’s town square. Displaying the typical modus operandi with its Saturday night story, Reuters vaguely attributed the purported US intelligence conclusions about Russia to “six sources familiar with US intelligence.” 

According to those sources, “US intelligence reports” are warning that, despite Putin’s outwardly earnest claims that he wants to end the Ukraine war — claims credited by Trump — Russia not only wants to conquer all of Ukraine but also other European territories that were part of the Soviet Union. “The reports present a starkly different picture from that painted by…Trump and his Ukraine peace negotiators,” wrote Reuters journalists Jonathan Landay, Erin Banco and John Irish. Shortly after Banco promoted the story on X, Gabbard lashed out: 

“No, this is a lie and propaganda Reuters is willingly pushing on behalf of warmongers who want to undermine President Trump’s tireless efforts to end this bloody war that has resulted in more than a million casualties on both sides. Dangerously, you are promoting this false narrative to block President Trump’s peace effort, and fomenting hysteria and fear among the people to get them to support the escalation of war, which is what NATO and the EU really want in order to pull the United States military directly into war with Russia.

The truth is the US intelligence community has briefed policymakers, including the Democrat HPSCI member quoted by Reuters, that US Intelligence assesses that Russia seeks to avoid a larger war with NATO. It also assesses that, as the last few years have shown, Russia’s battlefield performance indicates it does not currently have the capability to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine, let alone Europe.”

The “Democratic HPSCI member” (House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) is Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, who told Reuters that intelligence has “always” said “Putin wants more…The Europeans are convinced of it. The Poles are absolutely convinced of it. The Baltics think they’re first.”

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Chuck Todd: Big Tech, Algorithms to Blame for Public Mistrust of Press

During an appearance on Saturday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “America Right Now,” political commentator and former moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press” Chuck Todd addressed the public’s apparent decline in trust in the media.

Todd attributed it to Big Tech and algorithms.

“Well, I think the short answer is yes, and I think, look, we haven’t had reliable political leadership,” he said. “And I think one of the things I like to remind people is one of the reasons I think trust in media has fallen to so low is remember what the media is. It’s a reflection of — I say I’m as good as the sources I have, not necessarily the sources I want at times, to borrow a phrase from the late Donald Rumsfeld, meaning, if you’re getting untrustworthy sources, you may be reporting untrustworthy information right? You get my drift here. And so, I think that the collapse of trust in overall institutions, the media in some ways is a reflection of that distrust and so that we may be reporting what the quote, unquote ‘experts’ tell us.”

Todd continued, “But if the public doesn’t trust those experts and then we in the media, are quoting those experts, they don’t trust us, too. It’s sort of across the board. And what you have now, I would argue, Tom, is essentially the left doesn’t trust the media now and the right doesn’t trust the media. We are in this siloed world. I put the blame on Big Tech and algorithms that sort of, I think, make it too easy for too many people to live in a bubble, a filter bubble. And I do think in some ways, there’s too many people — I always say we have too many journalists in Washington and New York, and not enough everywhere else.”

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Media ‘complicity’ blamed as feds say Minnesota fraud crisis could reach $9B: ‘Shown their true colors’

Minnesota’s sprawling fraud crisis has garnered national headlines in recent weeks, but several critics say the problem festered for years, aided by local media that appeared uninterested in holding people in power accountable. 

“In newsrooms, they’re told, ‘We can’t run that because we’re going to be accused of being racist,’” Townhall columnist Dustin Grage recently told Fox News Digital about news outlets in Minnesota essentially enabling the fraud by not calling out shocking taxpayer waste occurring primarily within the local Somali community.

The outlet that is considered by many the top news source in the region, the Minnesota Star Tribune, has faced criticism on social media in recent days over some of its headlines, including “Minnesota Somali community grapples with fraud cases while pushing back against stereotypes” on Nov. 26 and “Trump claims Minnesota lost billions to fraud. The evidence to date isn’t close” on Dec. 11. 

On Thursday, federal prosecutors held a press conference where they revealed that the true scope of the fraud scandal could end up costing taxpayers around $9 billion, prompting some conservatives on social media to point out the Dec. 11 headline.

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David Brooks Said ‘Count Me Out’ Of Epstein Story, Then Wound Up In Epstein Photos

A few weeks ago, New York Times columnist David Brooks urged people to move on from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal already.

“The Epstein Story? Count Me Out,” reads the title of his Nov. 21 op-ed. In it, he laments that America’s political class has spent months trying to get a clearer picture of the late convicted sex offender’s ties to President Donald Trump and other powerful people, and what they may have known about Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring.

There are much more pressing issues facing the country, Brooks argued, and the real reason people are so focused on the Epstein scandal is because “the QAnon mentality has taken over America,” a reference to a far-right political conspiracy theory centered on a deep-state cabal of elite liberal pedophiles.

It’s also not fair to lump all wealthy and well-connected people into the category of “the Epstein class,” he argued. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has been using this phrase, something he’s said he picked up from voters who have asked him if he’s on the side of “forgotten Americans” or “the Epstein class.”

“I know a thing or two about the American elite, ahem, and if you’ve read my work, you may be sick of my assaults on the educated elites for being insular, self-indulgent and smug,” Brooks wrote. “But the phrase ‘the Epstein class’ is inaccurate, unfair and irresponsible. Say what you will about our financial, educational, nonprofit and political elites, but they are not mass rapists.”

The longtime New York Times columnist may have wanted to turn away from the Epstein scandal, but it found him on Thursday, when Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released more photos provided by Epstein’s estate ― and Brooks was in them.

He appears in four of these photos, all of which seem to be from the same event. One shows Brooks smiling for the camera, and another shows him seated at a table near Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Two more images show Brooks in the background, apparently holding a glass of wine, and then again, talking to Brin.

Epstein doesn’t appear in any of the pictures with Brooks, but is in two separate photos that seem to be from the same event.

The pictures don’t show Brooks doing anything weird or wrong. He was just hanging out with a group of rich and famous powerful men, one of whom happened to be a registered sex offender who’d pleaded guilty three years earlier to state charges for procurement of minors to engage in prostitution.

Asked for comment about Brooks appearing in the latest Epstein photo dump, The New York Times responded almost immediately.

“As a journalist, David Brooks regularly attends events to speak with noted and important business leaders to inform his columns, which is exactly what happened at this 2011 event. Mr. Brooks had no contact with him before or after this single attendance at a widely-attended dinner,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, senior vice president of communications at The New York Times, told HuffPost in an emailed statement.

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BBC Vows to Fight Trump’s $10 BILLION Defamation Lawsuit After Splicing J6 Speech to Depict Trump Calling for Violence

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has vowed to fight Trump’s $10 million lawsuit against the broadcaster for defamation and violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act after they were caught deceptively editing Trump’s January 6 speech to make it appear he was calling for violence. 

As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump told reporters on Monday that he would imminently be filing a defamation lawsuit against the BBC after announcing his intention to do so last month.

“In a little while, you’ll be seeing, I’m suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

“They actually have me speaking with words that I never said, and they got caught because I believe somebody at BBC said this is so bad it has to be reported. That’s called fake news.

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N.Y. Times Contributor Who Went on Bigoted Anti-White Tirade Smears Jillian Michaels as ‘White Nationalist’ 

Former Democrat and celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels stunned New York Times contributor Wajahat Ali after he tried to smear her as a “white nationalist.”

During an episode of “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Ali attacked Michaels for expressing valid concerns about Islamic extremism. Ali suggested her views are outdated, and then he doubled down, calling Michaels a white nationalist.

Ali stated, “Ahmad Al-Ahmad is a 43-year-old Muslim fruit vendor who, unarmed, decided to bumrush one of the terrorists, disarmed him, took the gun while he was being shot at. He was shot twice. I didn’t realize this at first when I saw that amazing video. But then I later saw that he was shot twice. He held off the other shooter, and he saved lives.”

“In Germany, in March, there was a deranged Saudi national who, by the way, became radicalized by AfD and this type of white nationalism, and ended up hating Islam. He rammed a truck in a terrorist attack through a crowd. You know who stopped him? A Pakistani Muslim cab driver in Germany stopped him.,” he continued.

“When there was an attack on Jews in was in France a couple of years ago, there was an African-Black immigrant who protected them.”

“This is the story of an individual who decided to lean into empathy and decency and compassion and squared off against two individuals who were radicalized, we don’t know how, and saw Jews as the target through their dehumanization. There are 1. 7 billion Muslim people on Earth. Gillian’s talking points are from 2001, which is why I yawned.”

“The DeLorean right now is in 2025.”

Michaels cut in, “They’re not at all, actually.”

Ali continued, “Listen, I’ve been in this for a long time, Gillian. I know you’re discovering this. Congratulations. Let me just finish. I let you say a lot of hateful, stupid, reckless things about Muslim and Islam.

“You want to say 1%? That’s 20 million people,” Michael pressed.

“Gillian, you are….”

“You still have 16 dead, Wajahat.”

“You, by your own admission, are a white nationalist. By your own admission, that’s what you are, a white nationalist. You admitted it,” Ali stated. “I saw the clip.”

“You know I’m Arab, right?” Michaels asked. ” I’m Syrian and Lebanese and Turkish.”

“You’re the one who said it. I didn’t say it. That’s why I was shocked,” Ali continued.

“When did I say I was a white nationalist?” Michaels asked. “When was that?”

“You’re not a white nationalist?” Ali pressed.  “Wasn’t there a clip saying you were a white nationalist? When was that? You’re not a white nationalist.”

“No,” Michaels stated emphatically.

“Okay, interesting. Interesting to know. All right,” he replied.

Michaels then pressed Ali, “Where’s the clip that I said it was a white nationalist?”

A stuttering Ali answered, “I’m under the mistaken impression. I thought you were a white nationalist. I’m glad you’re not. But let me just finish. Since 2001…..”

Michaels cut in, “I’m a not a white nationalist. How about a little homework, Wajahat.”

“How about just a little?”

“All right, let’s do homework. Let’s do homework. Since 2001, Piers, since 2001, you and me, we were against the war on terror. We said that the war on terror would be disastrous. We said that the war on terror, America’s response to 19 foreign hijackers bringing down the two towers would cause immense chaos, dissension. What happened? America went to war with Iraq and Afghanistan off of terrible evidence, off of the same type of bullshit that Gillian is saying right now. If even 1% of Muslims, yada, yada, yada. What happened?”

“It’s all fact-based. You want me to cite the resources?” Michaels pressed. “Where would you like me to start? Pew Research, Counter Terrorism Discourse estimates, the European Court of Human Rights…..Are you kidding me?”

A petulant Ali continued….”Gillian, let me finish. Over 1 million Iraqis were killed. Afghans were killed and tortured. And it led to the radicalization of ISIS. It brought nothing but pain and misery in division.  Muslims, Jews, aren’t going anywhere, folks. We’re in this together. And what we have to realize that there are hate mongers who seek to divide us right now, like Gillian, who want to bring up Islamophobia and anti-seminism.”

“Actually, I’m not trying to divide us at all, Wajahat ” Michaels affirmed. “You’re the one actually has tried to divide us.”

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Pundits Blame Sydney Slaughter on Protest Slogan

Australian officials are still learning about the individuals who carried out the Bondi Beach attack, killing more than a dozen Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney. But the pundits, with their magnifying glasses and meerschaum pipes, have cracked the case. The culprit is: pro-Palestine protesters.

“When people chant ‘intifada revolution,’ they are revealing something important about their goals and methods,” wrote noted Iraq War enthusiast David Frum (Atlantic, 12/14/25). “Yet in many Western countries, public authorities have been reluctant—or unwilling—to hear the message.” Frum went on:

It is helpful to possess a lexicon of what is typically intended by these vocabularies. Armed struggle means shooting people or blowing them up with bombs. By any means necessary means targeting the most defenseless: children, the elderly, other civilians. Globalize the intifada means shooting or bombing people in Sydney, London, Paris, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York City, as well as in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. From the river to the sea means the annihilation of a sovereign democratic state and the mass murder, expulsion and enslavement of much of its population.

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