Bruce Posner

Comments and retweets on business, economics, politics, food & culture from Cambridge, MA.

[ProPublica @propublica]

After receiving a request from Peter Navarro, the Pentagon rushed to approve a deal to lend $620 million to a company linked to Donald Trump Jr.

Now, lawmakers are demanding answers from the White House.

https://t.co/d5cwxt7OO0

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

[Brian Mistrot @brian_mistrot]

@harrylitman I just posted the same thing.

I’ve been completely against impeachment w/out a real possibility of guilty in the Senate. What happed today is the exception.

He should be impeached. Blanche as well.

[Harry Litman @harrylitman]

I have not pulled the trigger on this since Jan 2021 and the pardons of all the Jan 6 defendants, but I think there's a strong argument that the settlement of Trump's bogus, unconstitutional case in return for a $1.8b fund for 'Biden weaponization' is an impeachable offense.

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

Top election lawyer Marc Elias exposes an absolute bombshell. He confirms the Supreme Court deliberately abused the shadow docket.

He reveals the court intentionally bypassed procedures to let Louisiana immediately disenfranchise Black voters during an active election.

[Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton]

Trump didn’t just pardon his followers who stormed the U.S. Capitol.

He’s now set them up for payments through a slush fund he created to reward his allies—out of your tax dollars.

You could not make this up.

[Rep. Melanie Stansbury @Rep_Stansbury]

This is the MOST corrupt Administration in American history:
—Insider trading
—Selling pardons
—Crypto and real estate deals
—Arms deals
—BILLIONS in tax breaks for billionaires on the backs of the American people

And NOW the IRS giving Trump and convicted rioters BILLIONS in taxpayer dollars. This is outrageous!

[Daniel Goldman @danielsgoldman]

The Trump Slush Fund is even worse than expected: because he and @DAGToddBlanche know that this whole lawsuit was illegal, they withdrew the case so the judge can’t rule on its legality!

This is just mind-boggling corruption. And the “lawsuit” was all a ruse.

Trump and Blanche must be removed from office immediately.

https://t.co/9Y1Pu1eoKg

[Adam Schiff @SenAdamSchiff]

First, Donald Trump sues his own IRS to enrich himself.

Now he wants to use billions in taxpayer funds to compensate his allies, including thousands charged for the January 6 insurrection.

This is easily the most corrupt regime in U.S. history.

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Kyle Kulinski on Trump crying about Jimmy Kimmel’s joke: “We are not fucking doing this anymore. You make nuclear threats on a regular basis. You triple-tapped an elementary school you bitch. You bombed a hospital. You’re arming and funding a genocide in Gaza. You are the war criminal of all war criminals. You are the terrorist of all terrorists. You don’t get to go on a colossal murdering spree and then whine about mean language”

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

🚨MAJOR BREAKING: Rep. Pat Ryan just revealed that Pete Hegseth ordered military members to an area in Kuwait with an ACTIVE WARNING they had ZERO defense against drone attacks and he IGNORED IT.

Six were then KILLED. Survivors blame Hegseth.

This is even WORSE than Benghazi.

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

Not so long ago, Donald Trump posted a picture of a bound & gagged President Biden in the back of a truck. Trump didn’t apologize & he didn’t take it down. I wrote about it here; the analysis stands up in light of the indictment of Jim Comey today. https://t.co/E9SuSH6haj

[George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway3d]

hey do you guys think I need a lawyer

[Jon Favreau @jonfavs]

Sincere question: do Trump supporters who genuinely want to reduce political violence actually think that lobbing transparently hypocritical accusations about the left's rhetoric is in any way effective?

Are we really gonna go through another cycle where MAGA folks point out incendiary rhetoric on the left without ever acknowledging that some of the most violent and incendiary rhetoric in America comes from the President and his supporters? Do you not think the rest of the country has eyes and ears?

It's truly awful that President Trump has been the target of political violence. It's also truly awful how he's frequently talked about his political opponents: accusing them of treason, amplifying calls for their execution, publicly celebrating their death, calling them scum, garbage, vermin, animals. It was like 3 weeks ago that he threatened the annihilation of an entire civilization! It was just a few months ago that he and his White House knowingly smeared two Americans who'd been killed by federal agents as domestic terrorists!

I hate political violence. I hate what happened last night. Probably 99% of Americans agree. But let's not insult everyone's intelligence by pretending that the most powerful person in the world isn't a huge part of the problem here.

[Alex Cole @acnewsitics]

Trump sends out tweets from official government accounts saying he's glad certain people are dead and he wants to eradicate entire civilizations, but it's Democrats who must tone down the rhetoric?

Start from the top.

[Andy Kim @AndyKimNJ]

I’m leaving the Capitol at 4am after Republicans rammed through a vote paving a path for $70B to fund ICE for years without any reforms/accountability. They rejected all Dem proposals to lower your healthcare costs, housing, and gas prices. Spread the word. We need to stop this.

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

NEW: Bloomberg News obtained a transcript of a 17 October call between Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, where Orban compared their relationship to a “mouse” ready to help the Russian “lion” as needed.

“Yesterday our friendship rose to such a high level that I can help in any way,” Orban told the Russian dictator on the call. “In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service.”

Meanwhile, JD Vance is campaigning in Hungary today and tomorrow for Viktor Orban ahead of Sunday’s election, where polls show the Kremlin-backed kleptocrat is expected to lose.

[David Frum @davidfrum]

The only clear winners of Trump's Iran War: the speculators who made hundreds of millions trading on Mar a Lago inside information

[Andy Kim @AndyKimNJ]

There was a lot of craziness today, but let it not be lost that the Vice President of America spoke in person at a political rally for a brutal autocrat and said “I love Viktor.” Trump and Vance want to do to America what Orbán has done to dismantle democracy in Hungary.

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

25TH AMENDMENT!!!
Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization.
This is evil and madness.