Scott Merville

Former newspaperman. Ex-PR guy. Cubs fan always. Favs = bookmark.

[Scott Merville @smerv]

A bit of beauty for your Thursday. Cabezon Peak in northwestern New Mexico. Photo by Steven Yabek

[Jason Kint @jason_kint]

Well said. “It is incoherent to immunize the president from prosecution on the theory that he can be held accountable through the political process — and then to deny Congress and the public information that would help them do so.” - Jameel Jaffer 1/2

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

Sure, but:
1) 2011 was the time to reform and avoid the situation we are in now.
2) Very, very few politicians ever truly cared about deficits. The rest use them as a partisan cudgel against the party in power.
3) The Tea Party was never serious. It was a partisan reaction to TARP, ACA, and Obama. When I met with these groups to discuss addressing the big deficit drivers (Social Security, Medicare, defense, veterans, tax policy) they would bite my head off. They just wanted to defund Democrats, minorities, and "waste."

[Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews]

Wow.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) floor speech on Trump Admin. corruption has now received 1 million views

He opens the remarks by arguing that Trump has turned the White House into a 24/7 corruption operation

https://t.co/0GEyvQd51z

[Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw]

Good to see this reversal of Secretary Hegseth's ill-fated policy:

"The Army, Navy and Air Force are once again requiring flu shots for basic trainees."

https://t.co/uypWAg90rL

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

The irony of Republicans controlling all branches of government while

bankrupting the country, starting a war, sending money to fraudulent programs, violating the Constitution, giving corporations immunity...

but arguing that the biggest problem we have is “stolen elections.”

[Decoding Fox News @DecodingFoxNews]

Yesterday Trump falsely claimed that Obama and Biden spent a total of $147 million on renovations for the reflecting pool. Obama spent $35 million. Biden spent nothing. I provide receipts via AP and USASpending gov. In late April Trump said his renovations would cost $1.5 million

[Jim Geraghty @jimgeraghty]

The U.S. Loses Its War Against Iran https://t.co/eOxSaBfVOx

[Jim Geraghty @jimgeraghty]

Call it Orwellian, call it something out of North Korea, call it whatever you want, but massive posters of the leader’s face all over government buildings and seemingly every citizen interaction with the federal government is _not American_.

Trump’s Face Takes Over Washington https://t.co/S8HUUfqvOk

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

Congress is getting ready to remove the requirement that shell companies register their real owners. The bill "will restore America’s status as the leading offshore haven"

[Jim Geraghty @jimgeraghty]

As we have seen with this administration, repeatedly, personnel is policy. When you select an idiot to run the Department of Homeland Security, you get bad results at DHS. When you select someone with behavioral issues to run the Department of Labor, you get one embarrassing scandal after another. When you select a yes-woman who overpromises and underdelivers, you get a mess at the Department of Justice.

And when you select a Manhattan real estate guy who sees previous foreign policy experience as a liability to negotiate with the Iranian mullahs, you end up losing your shirt.

[Jay Nordlinger @jaynordlinger]

This was Mitt in 2022. Three years later, she was our director of national intelligence. Decline is a choice.

[James Surowiecki @JamesSurowiecki]

Idaho adopted no-excuse mail-in voting in 1972. Washington did it in 1974. California in 1978. Iowa in 1990. Arizona, Wyoming and Vermont in 1991. Nebraska in 1997. Oregon in 1998. Wisconsin and Florida did it in 2001. NC in 2002. Ohio in 2005. Georgia, Illinois, and NJ in 2006.

[Jim Geraghty @jimgeraghty]

The cheating on his wife, the six business bankruptcies, the “grab them by the” you-know-what comment, the sneering at John McCain’s experience as a prisoner of war, accepting a plane from the Qataris, the praise for dictators, the ferocious attacks on allies, the threat to militarily annex Greenland, the quoting of Benito Mussolini, the gleeful social media posts after a famous critic got murdered — you name it, the average Trump fan can come up with an excuse for it, or insist it doesn’t really matter.

Donald Trump’s life is a moral Chernobyl, and yet there are people — Americans who think of themselves as Christians! — who see him as morally difficult to distinguish from Jesus. I am going to choose to believe that when Pastor Mark Burns and a group of religious leaders dedicated a 22-foot golden statue to President Donald Trump at the Trump National Doral Miami golf club, and then used its creation to sell a meme coin called $PATRIOT, they did so as an elaborate troll. Then again, they did not include a giant golden calf, nor Mooby.

[Jim Geraghty @jimgeraghty]

It would be astonishingly stupid for the United States to not take advantage of every opportunity to improve its capabilities in both air offense and air defense. And it would be jaw-droppingly bang-your-head-on-the-desk stupid for the U.S. to drag its feet on a useful deal because of “a certain amount of hostility towards Ukraine coming from the very top.”

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

Maybe because he literally just put an entirely unqualified political hatchet man in charge of the DNI — while we’re at war — and the only reason he could give was that he would look into the “stolen” election bullshit? He’s making hugely important decisions based on a lie. That seems worth paying attention to. He also tried to set up a compensation fund for people who, inspired by his promulgation of that lie, laid siege to the Capitol. Oh and the only legislation he cares about is all wrapped up in his delusions about how elections are stolen. I can keep coming up with reasons. But the fact that the president still thinks his lie should drive policy and personnel (several J6ers work in the administration) that makes it relevant, imho.

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

The whole point is that he is unqualified and will make us less safe. This isn’t a glitch. It’s the design. The US is to bend to its rivals abroad and collapse from within. For this he is the right guy!
https://t.co/76hGh4lbnA

[Mikhail Khodorkovsky @khodorkovsky_en]

Remember the pig heads at the Paris mosques? Or the Jewish centers painted green?

I knew exactly whose work it was the moment I saw it. Now — I finally have the proof. 🧵 [1/19]

[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

[Sarah Longwell @SarahLongwell25]

Pulte is a clown, but also the one who allegedly illegally pulled all the loan files to investigate Tish James, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Lisa Cook. Pretty alarming to make a guy willing to turn the state apparatus against citizens the Director of National Intelligence.

[Sarah Longwell @SarahLongwell25]

It’s preposterous when people argue that “Kamala would have been worse.” Do you seriously think she would have gone to war with Iran? Do you seriously think she would have imposed unilateral tariffs and reversed our economic recovery? No, she would have been fine.