60 Minutes Watch Party

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This morning at 10am ET we will fire up the chat room for a look at this now infamous segment:

Paramount (CBS) tried to kill this report, but it got out anyway and here it is.

The spiked 60 Minutes segment, “Inside CECOT,” details the deportation of 252 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s “Terrorism Confinement Center.” The investigation reveals the administration used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to bypass immigration courts, classifying civilians—including a soccer player and a makeup artist—as “gang terrorists” without due process.

Key findings show that 75% of the deportees had no criminal record in the U.S. or abroad. To facilitate this, the U.S. reportedly paid the Salvadoran government $6 million—roughly $20,000 per prisoner—using State Department funds intended for narcotics control.

The report features footage of the “intake” process, where men were stripped of their identities, shaved, and forced into a facility designed for 40,000 gang members. Ultimately, the segment frames the operation as a secret, taxpayer-funded offshore detention system designed to circumvent U.S. judicial oversight.

For the full backstory see our brief (including update on a new court ruling yesterday)→
📖El Salvador: The CECOT Deportations

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50 thoughts on “60 Minutes Watch Party”

  1. but first

    a FESTIVE FESTIVUS FOR ALL!!!


    Gather ’round and sing-a-long to this traditional Festivus carol!

    The Buffalo Festivus Chorale was established in 1949 on the lower West Side of Buffalo to help celebrate and promote the accomplishments of the Festivite community. The Chorale was active giving performances throughout Buffalo until the mid-1960’s when much of the Festivite community emigrated to other parts of the country where they would not be persecuted for their beliefs . This historic recording was discovered at an estate sale in Cheektowaga, and digitally restored by Tea With Warriors in 2011.

    Happy Festivus!!!

  3. the good judge Boasberg airs the first grievance:
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/judge-orders-plan-to-return-ex-cecot-detainees-to-us-or-give-them-hearings/

    A federal judge on Monday gave the Trump administration two weeks to submit a plan to either return a group of Venezuelan men previously held at a notorious Salvadoran prison to the U.S., or give them a hearing to contest allegations of gang membership.

    U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg issued the order after finding that 137 Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and held at the infamous CECOT megaprison had been denied their due process rights. Boasberg determined that the men were in the legal custody of the U.S. during the months they spent detained at CECOT, and that they should’ve been given a chance to challenge the Trump administration’s allegations that they were gang members.

    “On the merits, the Court concludes that this class was denied their due-process rights and will thus require the Government to facilitate their ability to obtain such hearing. Our law requires no less,” Boasberg wrote in his opinion Monday.

    The group of 137 men who could benefit from the ruling is a subset of more than 200 Venezuelan deportees sent to CECOT in March, some of whom were deported to El Salvador under traditional immigration procedures. All of the Venezuelan men held at CECOT were released this summer and returned to Venezuela as part of a U.S.-brokered prisoner swap.

    Boasberg said the U.S. government could comply with his order by allowing the men to return to the U.S. or otherwise offering them a hearing. The administration, he wrote, could “theoretically offer Plaintiffs a hearing without returning them to the United States so long as such hearing satisfied the requirements of due process.”

    Boasberg gave the government until Jan. 5 to file a plan to comply with his order.

    CBS News reached out to the Department of Homeland Security seeking comment.

    The Trump administration has argued that the men ceased to be in U.S. custody after they were sent to El Salvador, so U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction to hear legal claims challenging their detention. But Boasberg wrote that the U.S. effectively maintained control over the men because El Salvador held them in prison at the U.S.’s behest, and the administration paid for them to be detained at CECOT.

    The first group of Venezuelan men sent to CECOT were deported on March 15, soon after President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act and declared alleged members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang enemies of the state who could be detained and deported with little to no due process.

    At the time, Trump administration officials called the deportees dangerous criminals, terrorists and gangsters.

    CBS News was first to obtain and publish the list of the Venezuelan men sent to CECOT on March 15. Using that list, “60 Minutes” and CBS News found that many of the deportees did not have any apparent criminal record, in the U.S. or abroad, despite the administration’s allegations.

    A report released last month by human rights groups determined that the treatment of the Venezuelan deportees imprisoned at CECOT amounted to arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance under international law.

    The investigation, by the groups Human Rights Watch and Cristosal, found the detainees were victims of “constant beatings” by Salvadoran guards at the notorious maximum security prison, as well as other forms of mistreatment, including cases of sexual abuse.

  5. The video got spiked in your EMail so I assume we won’t be able to do a group watch for your YouTue chanel. Everyone will just have to download and watch on their own computers.

  7. But you are right we still can’t watch the whole thing while on YouTube, thanks to Paramount. It’s a tricky maneuver — can still watch it together live after our 10am ET discussion about this or anything else on YouTube.

  9. Wall Street Journal gets it. Editorial Board points out it’s not just the law establishing the Kennedy Center that prevents renaming — the Kennedy Center Board itself has no statutory authority for this:

    The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees was also created by statute, in 20 U.S.C. § 76 (j), which enumerates the responsibility of the officers, including to present music, opera, drama and dance, to contribute to performing arts education and to provide “facilities for other civic activities.” The board is also tasked with ensuring the facility received “necessary maintenance” and had “safe and convenient access” for pedestrians.

    Notably absent from this list is the power to rename the Kennedy Center or augment the name by adding Mr. Trump alongside. Further memorials are explicitly banned by the statute, which instructs the board to “assure that after December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

  11. WSJ did a deep dive into the back story on Bari Weiss killing the 60 Minutes story. Her BS reason was the need for on-the-record administration comment. The correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, said the Trump team refused comment:

    “If the standard for airing a story becomes ‘the government must agree to be interviewed, then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.”

    — Free Link

  12. a “kill switch” indeed
    https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/22/media/bari-weiss-60-minutes-cecot-cbs-alfonsi-ellison

    Reading between the lines, Weiss confirmed her insistence on adding Stephen Miller or another Trump official voice to the story. But Alfonsi’s team did ask for comment, and “their refusal to be interviewed” was “a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story,” Alfonsi wrote in the memo. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient.”

  13. What America is Clicking: Tuesday, December 23, 2025, 8:40 AM EST

    1. Global Conflict: A massive Russian air assault involving 650+ drones and 30+ missiles struck 13 regions in Ukraine, killing at least three people, including a 4-year-old boy. The Independent
    2. Transparency?: Justice Department faces continued backlash over limited Epstein files release CBS News
    3. National Defense: From Mar-a-Lago, the President unveiled a new “Trump class” of Navy battleships for a “Golden Fleet,” featuring high-tech rail guns and hypersonic capabilities. Fox 26 Houston
    4. Geopolitics: A Russian general was killed in a car bombing in Moscow; Russian investigators are officially blaming Ukrainian special services for the assassination. AP News
    5. Climate & Energy: The administration has suspended leases for five major offshore wind projects on the East Coast, citing “national security risks” and potential radar interference. Reuters
    6. Education: International student visa applicants are now facing new requirements to provide public access to their social media accounts for federal security screening. WUSF
    7. Legal: A coalition of 21 Democratic-led states has filed a lawsuit to block the White House from redirecting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau funds. AP News
    8. Science: Rare footage from Yellowstone captures a “muddy eruption” at the Black Diamond Pool, a geologic event described by experts as a spectacular “dirty” eruption. AP News
    9. Offbeat: A homeowner in Utah discovered a hidden 112-year-old “treasure” tucked inside an original door handle while renovating her historic Craftsman bungalow. Newsweek

    A snapshot by our AI partner Silas (Gemini) on what people are clicking, not what we think they should. Open Thread: Which of these stories is overblown, and what important news is missing? Add your links below.

  15. Watched the link that was on the trail feed late yesterday. Some of that video I’ve seen before, maybe on PBS. It seems to be CECOT trying to market themselves? ICE Barbie went there to market herself, so why not the facility and/or El Salvadoran government. Evidence for the ICC, I hope. As for “influencers” going there…WTF?

  18. It seems to be CECOT trying to market themselves?

    yup, Bukele is a proud douchebag

    As for “influencers” going there…WTF?

    ditto for young right-wing influencers

    and half the country

    52% of them actually

  22. Saddened to hear this.

    ”Ben Sasse, a Republican former senator from Nebraska and a former president of the University of Florida, announced on Tuesday that he had received a diagnosis of terminal Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

    “Since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase,” Mr. Sasse, 53, wrote in a long message on X. “Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.”

    Mr. Sasse, who has degrees from Harvard, St. John’s College and Yale, was a U.S. senator from Nebraska from 2015 to 2023. Mr. Sasse was appointed president of the University of Florida in November 2022.

    Mr. Sasse stepped down last year as Florida’s president, citing the health of his wife, Melissa, who had an aneurysm and a series of strokes in 2007, and had just been diagnosed with epilepsy.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/us/politics/ben-sasse-pancreatic-cancer.html?searchResultPosition=1

  23. Dad was a WWII Navy man…me, US Army.
    This morning I researched this topic of Trump class ships.
    . Trump was bragging his Trump fleet, each @$5B, would have ships that will dwarf any battleship or aircraft carrier in world history. Fact: half the size of the largest Iowa-class ships of WWII to the Viet Nam era. A third the length of say The Enterprise, retired at San Diego…I saw that monster, and was overwhelmed at the size. That ship is an aircraft carrier.
    This means the displacement of sea water will be a third of what the Enterprise displaces.
    In a world in which we hear of drone wars replacing troops with weapons in-hand, with tanks becoming only a specialized component of battle , we hear that Russia has now lost well over one million soldiers as the war there proceeds into year 4. So we ain’t there yet, into a world of diminished casualties.
    Still, all sensibilities point to a fact: Trump fleet, the $5,000,000,000 per ship plan, is just a self-tribute to a narcissist…an ego-inflated baboon who is still in The White House.
    For years I said Reagan was the worst President in history. Remember Grenada? The mess in Panama? The Iran-Contra disaster which Reagan said under oath he could not remember a thing? OK..Trump has now surpassed Reagan in the race to the bottom.

  25. Dexter – I was in the Air Force, my father was in the Army WWII, my great-uncle was Navy in WWI, my grandfather just missed WWI, but served on one of the battleships, USS Idaho. Big ships, obsolete eighty years ago.

  27. https://www.thedailybeast.com/internet-sleuths-reveal-hack-to-undo-epstein-file-redactions/

    “So apparently there are many Epstein files on the DOJ website where you can highlight the redacted text, copy it, and paste it onto another document to read the redactions,” X user Liam Nissan shared in a post viewed 6.8 million times as of publication.

    “Trump DOJ screwed up some of the redactions so bad that you can recover them,” he said in the video. “And I did so simply by copying and pasting the text.”

    “The Epstein files on the DOJ website allow you to highlight the redacted text, copy it, and paste it into another document, which reveals what was hidden,” one X user wrote.”You can also press Ctrl+F and search for ‘Trump ’ (with a space) to see his name appear more than 600 times.”

    It’s not clear how many documents can be unmasked by the editing trick. However, one newly naked document shed light on a civil case against Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn, two executors of Epstein’s estate. According to The Guardian, a redacted portion reads: “Between September 2015 and June 2019, Indyke signed (FAC) for over $400,000 made payable to young female models and actresses, including a former Russian model who received over $380,000 through monthly payments of $8,333 made over a period of more than three and a half years until the middle of 2019.”

    Indyke has never faced criminal charges and was hired by the Parlatore Law Group in 2022—prior to the DOJ settling the Epstein case—which represents Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

    Another redacted passage alleges that the two men tried to conceal their “criminal sex trafficking and abuse” through large sums of hush money to victims and witnesses.

    *Also, Canada got to see the CECOT piece on 60 Minutes.

  28. A separate house for your bathroom? That’s high-performance childhood wealth! 🏠☕️
    Pull Up A Chair for our daily chats online or on YouTube.
    20 years of fuzzy logic and real conversation. Join the daily habit! 🐎
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  29. Was pulling the CECOT piece in the US while allowing it to air in Canada just a distraction from the EPSTEIN files?

  30. https://people.com/epstein-files-rape-allegation-against-trump-11875364

    Describing the driver’s unverified allegations, the document reads, “[Woman] stated, ‘He raped me.’ [Driver] said, ‘What?’ as [Woman] replied ‘Donald J. Trump had raped her along with Jeffrey Epstein.’ ”

    The allegations of rape aren’t the only disturbing accusations in the limo driver’s account. The document goes on to say that the driver alleged he encouraged the woman to tell the police what she told him, but she responded, “I can’t, they will kill me.”

    The document summarized the driver’s claims, stating, “On Christmas Day [1999], [Woman] contacted [Driver] and stated she had in fact called the police about what they had talked about. [Driver] told she had ‘done good.’ [Driver] did not hear from [Woman] or [redacted] until 01/10/2000. [Redacted] reached out to [Driver] stating [Woman] was dead and noted she was found with her head ‘blown off’ in Kiefer, OK. Officers on the scene and [redacted] stated there was no way it was a suicide. Corner stated it was a suicide.”

  31. Even the Supremes are starting to revolt a big. Roberts might be looking to his legacy now that he knows Trump may go down in flames yet.

  32. Anon,

    I’m not about to tackle the off set by commas clause “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,”. That way there be dragons.

  35. Trump suspends all large offshore wind farms under construction, threatening thousands of jobs and cheaper energy

    In the latest blow to the US offshore wind industry, the Trump administration announced Monday it is suspending the federal leases for all large offshore wind projects currently under construction, citing unspecified national security risks.

    It marks a major escalation in President Donald Trump’s attacks against offshore wind, a form of energy he has long railed against. The suspension could impact billions of dollars of investment and stall nearly six gigawatts of new electricity set to come online in the next few years.

    The new sweeping order impacts five projects being built in the Atlantic Ocean, including a massive Virginia offshore wind farm that could eventually be the largest such project in the nation. Set to be completed by the end of 2026, it would supply electricity to Virginia, the state with the world’s largest cluster of power-hungry data centers — and skyrocketing energy costs partially tied to that growing demand. Other wind farms impacted are off the coast of New England.

    The exact national security risks of concern are unclear. In a news release, the Interior Department cited “national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports,” but didn’t say specifically what those risks were. The release also noted the potential for wind turbine movement and light reflectivity to interfere with radar.

    More at link

  37. Marjorie Taylor Greene Tears Into Trump After Latest Epstein Files Release: ‘Only Evil People Would Hide This’

    “This is horrifying,” Greene posted on X. “Trump called me a traitor for fighting him to release the Epstein files and standing with women who were raped, jailed in stalls, and trafficked to men.”

    In particular, Greene took notice of the testimony of one Epstein victim, who claimed she was “kept in a stall” and judged on her appearance by Epstein and other men.

    *Well, mTg must not be too scared of what tRUMPco might do to her.

  39. The visuals weren’t popular, so they’ll back off…because they don’t actually care what the court says.

    Now, they are denaturalizing melanated folks (mostly) and sending them away. No masks, no whistles, no civilian-journalist videos.

    JD may be stepping up his visibility because they know they have to dump tRUMP ASAP.

  40. Immigrants now have fewer legal options to stay in the U.S. under Trump

    More than 1.6 million immigrants have lost their legal status in the first 11 months of President Trump’s presidency. The staggering number includes people who applied for and were accepted to come to the country on a wide variety of immigration parole, visa, asylum and temporary protected status programs. That number exceeds Philadelphia’s entire population.

    This is the largest effort to take away deportation protections for migrants who are in the country legally. Immigration advocates say it’s very likely an undercount.

    “These were legal pathways. People did the thing the government asked them to do, and this government went and preemptively revoked that status,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, an immigration advocacy organization that has been tracking the efforts to delegalize immigrants.

    More at link

  42. How do they have GDP up 4.3% ???

    Lack of reporting ???

    Higher prices due to tariffs ???

    Do they figure in the $40 billion to Argentina as government spending ???

  46. https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/22/business/trump-stock-fusion

    The Trump business empire’s expansion into nuclear fusion is alarming ethics experts, who warn it poses glaring conflicts of interest and risks the federal government playing favorites in what could be the holy grail of clean energy.

    Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) shocked Wall Street last week by arranging a $6 billion marriage with TAE Technologies, a Google-backed company at the leading edge of fusion energy.

    Nuclear fusion companies are regulated by the federal government and will likely need Uncle Sam’s deep research and even deeper pockets to become commercially viable. The merger needs to be approved by federal regulators – some of whom were nominated by Trump.

    “It’s only legal because the criminal conflict of interest statute does not apply to the president,” Painter said, adding that while it is “technically legal” he doesn’t believe presidents should be excluded from the law.

    Trump Media’s share price skyrocketed 42% when the merger was announced on Thursday. That increased the value of the stake Trump owns through a trust, by $500 million to $1.7 billion. Trump Media’s share price continued to climb Friday, increasing the value of that stake to above $1.8 billion.

    Painter, the former Bush ethics official, agrees the transfer to a trust doesn’t matter because Trump still has a financial interest.

    “That’s like saying, ‘I don’t own a piece of property just because I hired a property manager to take care of it,’” Painter said.

    Painter said there is a simple way for Trump to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

    “He should divest. Divest from nuclear fusion, social media and cryptocurrency,” Painter said.

    *Aaaand the MIT plasma/fusion scientist who was murdered, allegedly by the other scientist who also allegedly carried out the Brown University shootings and was found dead in a storage unit…were supposed to just forget about that, apparently.

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