The Conservative Cave

He bulldozed the East Wing.
You said nothing.

As with some of the comments I've read from you all, the changes in the Evening News started slow and subtle - new anchor Tony Dokoupil did have to find his footing, no doubt, and the tremendous resistance from entrenched staff didn't help - but the broadcast has changed and so much for the better.

Yeah, they will always have a lefty tilt to their rigging, but if you go by the rage foam-flecked spittle spewed in these comments on their piece about Platner last night, you know the progressive base no longer sees them as a reliable ally and propaganda mouthpiece.
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Of course, the crown jewel of the network has always been 60 Minutes and, to borrow a phrase from my friend Cynical Publius, the perfumed princes who inhabited the kingdom and breathed the rarified air there felt they were a realm unto themselves. Understandably so, having been a sacrosanct property for so long.

When the announcement of Weiss's hiring was made, the royalty of the broadcast sent not-so-subtle warning signals to their minions in print media that Weiss was to consider them as off-limits for her pedestrian touch.
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Weiss wasn't in the least bit impressed by the palace intrigue. She marched into a meeting with the haughty doyens of the venerated program and threw a simple curveball by asking one question:

WHY DOES THE COUNTRY THINK YOU'RE BIASED?

Stunned silence met the new boss.

60 Minutes staff were clueless.
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The news division felt it first, and some at 60 Minutes took that as a signal that their 'hands off' messaging had been received, digested, and accepted.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

Correspondent Sharon Alfonsi found that out when her sleight-of-hand piece on the CECOT prison in El Salvador was spiked by Weiss, for what turns out to have been purposeful malfeasance on Alfonsi's part.

In a towering fit of rage, Afonsi fired off a grievance note that CC'd everyone in the news division, and, while she wasn't fired right off the bat, her employment at 60 Minutes was spiked all the same, as they chose not to renew Afonsi's contract, which expired last week.

60 Minutes executive producer Tanya Simon and correspondent Cecilia Vega were released at the same time.
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CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss shook up the TV-news industry’s most-watched and best-regarded property Thursday, ousting the program’s two most senior executive producers, Tanya Simon and Draggan Mihailoivich, along with correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, according to two people familiar with the matter.

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As one who feels entitled to emote, I guess by virtue of his station in life every Sunday, Scott Pelley indulged himself in a massive tantrum during the first 'meet-the-boss' get-together.

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In a Monday-morning meeting, veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley ripped into his new boss, Nick Bilton.

“What qualifies you to be in this position?” Pelley demanded.
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“She’s murdering ’60 Minutes,’” Pelley said of Weiss. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that. She has no qualifications for her job.”

He continued by interrogating Bilton: “You have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic. So why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”

The duel outside Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, descended into chaos. It was a riot. We saw reporters assaulted, their phones stolen, and overall chaos. Eventually, the state police were called, but the anti-ICE movement must be shut down, which goes without saying, even though they can hold out for weeks. Independent reporters, like Nick Sortor, managed to get inside one of their tents: it’s stocked with plenty of supplies, again raising questions about who’s funding this circus.

As the anti-ICE crusade ramps up outside, some detainees inside—which include what some call the scum of the Earth—were reportedly on a hunger strike. However, Jennie Taer from The Daily Wire revealed that it was all nonsense, as they’re eating chips and honey buns inside. The supposed strike was over visitation rights:

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he Delaney Hall detainees engaging in a purported “hunger strike” are opting to not eat their regular meals while going to the commissary to purchase snacks instead, according to a source familiar with the situation. Meanwhile, activist groups are claiming that detainees are being fed spoiled food and meals contaminated with worms.
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So-called hunger strikes like the one playing out at Delaney Hall are all too common in ICE detention centers and the playbook is usually the same, former ICE New York field office deputy director Scott Mechkowski told The Daily Wire.

“I’ve seen real hunger strikes during my time as an ICE official, managing detention facilities. What’s happening at Delaney Hall is not a hunger strike,” Mechkowski said.

“When detainees are buying up Honey Buns and Snickers bars, and those with money are helping others get snacks, that’s not a hunger strike, it’s just a publicity stunt,” he added.

Judge Eleanor Ross, who serves on the federal bench in Atlanta, engaged in multiple acts of misconduct. She carried on a secret affair with an Atlanta police department officer for nearly two years, repeatedly had loud sex in her chambers, lied about her trysts, and obstructed the investigation. Each of these actions warranted a public reprimand and an impeachment inquiry. But one of the more stunning allegations has flown under the radar: Judge Ross routinely signs judicial orders her law clerks prepare without even reading them. Indeed, it seems she never even talks about these cases with her clerks, so likely has no clue what she is even approving. Yet the council that reviewed this case found no misconduct.

Let me tell you a not-so-well-kept secret: most judges let their law clerks do far too much. Take it from my personal experience. I clerked in a federal district court for two years immediately after law school. The judge I clerked for, who recently passed away, was a dedicated jurist and an honorable man, but he let his clerks have far too much autonomy. At the time, I was overwhelmed with how many important decisions turned on my immature judgment. In hindsight, I cringe at my mistakes that the judge did not catch. Judge Ross will likely lose her judgeship, either through resignation or impeachment. But the public needs to take a closer look at judges who have abdicated the judicial power to unknown law clerks.
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In contrast with the criminal docket, Judge Ross had no oversight of the civil docket. All six clerks reported that Judge Ross "did not indicate to the clerk how the judge was inclined to rule on the motion or otherwise provide any direction." Moreover, "it was generally understood that" Judge Ross "did not wish to discuss substantive civil-case related issues with clerks." I suppose her time was better spent having loud sex in chambers.

To be clear, the Judge didn't talk to her clerks about cases before they were assigned, and didn't want to talk to the clerk while the cases were being considered. Worse still, it appears that the judge rubber-stamped virtually every civil order that came before her. The clerks relayed that Judge Ross "rarely, if ever, substantively edited civil orders the clerks drafted." Indeed, the clerks were "generally unaware as to whether the Subject Judge reviewed pleadings or draft civil orders." As proof, a law clerk "stated that on multiple occasions the judge emailed the clerk to docket an order within a few minutes of receiving it, indicating that the judge may not have had time to read it."

A hoax costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and appears to incite arson attacks against dozens of churches.
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In 2021, ... Canadian outlets picked up a story too sensational not to be true:

Hundreds of indigenous First Nations children had been buried in unmarked graves at residential schools run by the Catholic Church in British Columbia.

The Kamloops Indian Band sent around a press release that "confirmed" it.

The statement claimed the remains of 215 children had been found with the help of an expert using ground-penetrating radar.
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Even now, Canada's biggest daily paper, The Globe and Mail, phrases its retraction in cagey terms.

"There has been no public confirmation of the discovery of any human remains," the paper conceded on May 30.
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The Globe and Mail editorial, titled "There is no reconciliation without truth," is a masterpiece of embarrassed equivocation, lamenting conditions for First Nations children at Canada's residential schools and even insisting the absence of bodies "does not mean children did not die there" before finally, eight paragraphs into the story, taking a smidgen of responsibility:

"The media, including The Globe and Mail, did not initially scrutinize, much less challenge" the story, the editorial board concedes.

"The initial headlines and stories in the media simply stated as fact that the remains of 215 children had been found. Many of those early stories, including in this newspaper, made references to 'mass graves'," ...
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The narrative comes first — the facts must follow.

This time they didn't, but next time?

The narrative isn't going away just because its showcase story has been debunked.

The consequences of the media hype aren't going away, either:

Canadian taxpayers footed the bill to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars — real money in U.S. dollars, too — for First Nations groups to investigate "soil anomalies."

The government simply doesn't know where the money went.