- CBS, now controlled by a Trump acolyte, pulled a story from last night’s 60 Minutes at the last moment;
- Dr. Noc on Facebook, a new reliable source;
- Short items about Trump’s favorite excuse, Republicans again taking credit for funding due to Biden, Trump’s antipathy toward wind farms, why Denmark’s vaccine schedule won’t work in the US, and how Christians resist following civil law.
The big news today is how CBS just pulled a story from last night’s 60 Minutes, a story that criticized the Trump administration’s deportment policy, at the last minute. Because control of CBS has been given over to a Trump supporter. Something similar is also happening at CNN, apparently. Because the Trump-supporting billionaires are buying up the big, formerly independent, media outlets.
NY Times, 21 Dec 2025: 60 Minutes’ Pulled a Segment. A Correspondent Calls It ‘Political.’, subtitled “Sharyn Alfonsi, a ’60 Minutes’ correspondent, criticized the network’s decision to remove her reporting from Sunday’s edition of the show.”
In a move that drew harsh criticism from its own correspondent, CBS News abruptly removed a segment from Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” that was to feature the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador.
CBS announced the change three hours before the broadcast, a highly unusual last-minute switch. The decision was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, requested numerous changes to the segment. CBS News said in a statement that the segment would air at a later date and “needed additional reporting.”
But Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, rejected that criticism in a private note to CBS colleagues on Sunday, in which she accused CBS News of pulling the segment for “political” reasons.
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote in the note, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Other takes:
Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution Is True, 22 Dec 2025: And so it begins: Bari Weiss gets a “60 Minutes” segment pulled from the show
CNN, 22 Dec 2025: CBS shelves ‘60 Minutes’ story on Trump deportees at the last minute: ‘People are threatening to quit,’ staffers say, via JMG: CBS Scrubs “60 Minutes” Expose On Migrant Abuses
Yet the pulled piece aired in Canada.
Axios: Yanked “60 Minutes” episode aired in Canada
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Let me highlight this. Another candle in the dark. I’ve been seeing this guy on Facebook. I see lots of folks on Facebook, but it seems like he’s a real deal.
(Not the greatest video. I’ll try to find a better one.)
NY Times, 19 Dec 2025: Can Science Win on Social Media? Ask Dr. Noc., subtitled “Morgan McSweeney’s TikTok crusade against White House health policies has made him a star. It’s not a job he ever wanted.”
Here’s his feed on Facebook: Good Vibes and Science.
From NYT:
Morgan McSweeney shouldn’t be a TikTok sensation.
The algorithms don’t reward lectures on the finer points of medical science. They don’t elevate fact-checkers over misinformation. And they generally don’t make stars out of earnest goofballs in button-downs and Clark Kent glasses.
But Dr. Noc, as he is known on TikTok and Instagram, has built an audience of more than four million followers anyway. With a style somewhere between a high school chemistry teacher and a youth minister, he has made a name for himself with silly dances and vaccine explainers.
“He’s sort of like a new Bill Nye,” said Sherry Pagoto, the director of the University of Connecticut Center for mHealth and Social Media. “He threads the needle, to be credible but engaging and informative.”
Dr. McSweeney, 33, who has a Ph.D. in immunology and a day job in biotech, started posting short, sometimes awkward, science videos during the pandemic to beat lockdown boredom. He soon found a more serious niche answering questions about the coronavirus.
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Short items.
- Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 22 Dec 2025: Trump’s favorite excuse in 2025: “I don’t know”
- JMG, 22 Dec 2025: Duffy Takes Credit For Biden Infrastructure Funding. They do this all the time.
- NYT, 22 Dec 2025: Trump Halts 5 Wind Farms Off the East Coast, subtitled “The Interior Department said the projects posed national security risks, without providing details. The decision imperils billions of dollars of investments.” Once again, they’re good at tearing down what better people before them have built.
- Unbiased Science, 19 Dec 2025: There’s Something Rotten In The United States, subtitled “Why the Denmark Vaccine Schedule Won’t Work in the U.S.”
- LGBTQNation, Alex Bollinger, 22 Dec 2025: Texas judge asks federal court to end marriage equality nationwide, subtitled “She has been arguing that, as a Christian, she should not have to follow state rules about judicial impartiality.” Because Christians think they’re above the law.
