CBS Fires Professional Prevaricator Scott Pelley

Longtime readers of mine know that I don't often do news stories. I'm the verbal bomb-throwing opinion guy here at the PJ Media Ranch; my colleagues handle the heavy news stuff much better than I do. Once in a great while, however, I come across a story that just makes me happy. Also, this one broke around 11 p.m. EDT, which is prime time in my Morning Briefing work day. 

The New York Times:

CBS News fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday, jettisoning one of the network’s best-known journalists in a clash over the future of “60 Minutes,” the country’s top-rated news program.

Mr. Pelley, 68, a “60 Minutes” correspondent and a former anchor of “CBS Evening News,” joined the network in 1989. At a staff meeting on Monday, he accused the network’s editor in chief, Bari Weiss, of “murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” citing the ouster last week of the program’s leadership team and two on-air correspondents.

“We have parted ways with Scott Pelley,” Nick Bilton, the tech journalist who was hired last week as the new “60 Minutes” executive producer, wrote in a memo to the show’s staff on Tuesday night.

The only reason that I wish this story had hit during regular work hours is because the meltdown on the left over this is going to be epic. I mean, real popcorn time stuff. I only had to check X for a few seconds to get my schadenfreude really revved up:

Any day that Ben Rhodes has his panties cranked up to "Extra Bunch" mode is a good one. For the record, sentences like that last one are also why I don't cover many news stories. 

One thing I do a lot of is write about the horrible bias among the Democrats' flying monkeys in the mainstream media. I've been on that beat for over two decades now, which makes me very, very familiar with Scott Pelley's work. Pelley has been redefining awful for the Columbia Broadcasting System since the early days of the George H.W. Bush administration. He has been one of the most egregiously biased people in media during all of that time. 

Like all of the Dem propagandists in American media, Pelley felt that it was his duty to put whatever spin he felt was necessary on a story, all the while trumpeting that he was doing serious journalism. Also, like Jake Tapper, Pelley brought a smugness to his prevarication. He always knew that he was lying, and he knew that the people who actually thought that he was a journalist were too stupid to know that. 

When I read the report of his tantrum about CBS news editor-in-chief Bari Weiss "murdering" the once-vaunted 60 Minutes I immediately thought, "I hope that this is the one time that Scott Pelley is right about something." These institutions that are revered by the left because they're integral in perpetuating Dem false narratives need to be destroyed. 

Let's face it, 60 Minutes ain't what it used to be. This is from something that my colleague Scott Pinsker wrote yesterday:

If you’re over the age of 50, 60 Minutes occupies a hallowed seat in the pantheon of TV journalism. That iconic stopwatch — Mike Wallace’s swagger, and John Madden and Pat Summerall telling us to be patient, because “60 Minutes will be shown in its entirety at the conclusion of the game” (except on the West Coast, of course) — are all etched in our psyche like a tribal tattoo. The show had gravitas, grit, guts, and gumption.

If you’re over the age of 50, there’s 60 Minutes… and everything else.

But if you’re under the age of 50, 60 Minutes means absolutely nothing. It’s a lumbering dinosaur, a relic from a forgotten age. Young people associate it with mahjong, reverse mortgages, and Gold Bond Medicated Powder.

I'm over 50 and I've never liked the show. I was never a fan of Mike Wallace or his irritating nepo baby Chris, either. My personal feelings aside, 60 Minutes has been caught with its hand in the bias cookie jar on more than one occasion. CBS settled with President Trump over an interview that the "news" program deceptively edited to help Kamala Harris in 2024.

So, good riddance to Scott Pelley and, if we dare to dream, the entire hackfest 60 Minutes program. I don't like to celebrate people losing jobs, but when those jobs involve carrying water for people who are actively trying to destroy the United States of America, the circumstances are duly mitigated. 

It has taken a while for Bari Weiss to get things moving at CBS News, but she's coming into her own now. She's engaged in a corporate version of draining the Swamp and it's not easy. It's looking more and more possible every day, though. 

https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2026/06/02/professional-prevaricator-scott-pelley-fired-by-cbs-n4953522

Spencer Pratt May Have Just Pulled Off What Every LA Insider Said Was Impossible

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass survived Tuesday's primary, advancing to a November runoff while political outsider Spencer Pratt muscled his way into second place (so far) on a campaign built entirely around her failures.

In the final update of the night, Bass held 34.78% (172,720 votes) to Pratt's 30.44% (151,149), with DSA-backed City Councilmember Nithya Raman at 22.32% (110,848). The last batch of 52,605 votes broke 37.6% for Pratt, 26.6% for Raman, and just 25.9% for Bass, extending Pratt's margin over Raman to more than 40,000 votes.

Decision Desk HQ projected Bass into the runoff early Wednesday morning, while Pratt, a first-time candidate who has never held elected office, was outpacing the veteran councilmember for the second runoff spot. 

Speaking with reporters after results began coming in, Pratt made clear he was ready for a long campaign against the incumbent.

"Obviously, God wanted 5 more months of me exposing all the failures of our mayor," Pratt said when asked how he was feeling about the results.

He added that he was eager for more time on a debate stage opposite her.

Pratt built his campaign on a simple argument: Bass had four years and made everything worse. He announced his run on the anniversary of the Palisades Fire, which burned down his own home, and has hammered the incumbent on rising costs, visible homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, and a wildfire recovery that residents say has moved far too slowly.

"Business as usual is a death sentence for Los Angeles, and I'm done waiting for someone to take real action," Pratt said at his candidacy announcement.

Pratt has repeatedly tied his candidacy to the Palisades Fire and the city's broader problems, arguing that Los Angeles residents are paying more while getting fewer basic services.

"I got in this because as a citizen, I felt like my city failed — myself, my neighbors, my family," he told reporters Tuesday night. "Mayor Bass has allowed the city to be covered in potholes. We don't have sidewalks. We don't have lights.”

Pratt also picked up a nod of approval from President Donald Trump, who recently said, "I heard he's a big MAGA person." In deep-blue Los Angeles, where Republicans make up less than 15% of registered voters, that kind of association is typically treated as political poison, which makes Pratt's second-place standing all the more striking.

Bass, for her part, has leaned on her record, claiming homelessness is down, and homicide rates are at their lowest since 1968. She has also argued that wildfire cleanup has been the fastest in U.S. history. She has pointed to a permanent affordable housing ordinance and the revival of the California Film and TV Tax Credit as wins from her first term.

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Read More: Banana Republic by Mail: Why We Probably Won't Know Outcomes of CA's Crucial Primaries for Days

New Pro-Spencer Pratt Ad Eviscerates Leftist Thinking in Hilarious Fashion

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Whether voters buy it is another question. Bass needed the full weight of the Democratic machine to get here: Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the city's powerful labor unions all lined up behind her.

She still only pulled 34.78% in her own city, and the late votes were trending away from her.

"I have devoted my entire life to serving the city that I love, where I was born, and I'm going to continue to do that all the way to victory in November," she told supporters.

More ballots remain outstanding, and California has a history of substantial vote updates after Election Day as mail and drop-off ballots continue to be counted. The race for second has not yet been called to advance to the runoff, but with Pratt sitting on a 40,301-vote lead over Raman and the final batch of the night trending heavily his way, he appeared well-positioned to secure the second slot and face Bass in November.

If the numbers hold, Los Angeles is headed for a November showdown between a career politician defending a troubled record and a political outsider who lost his home in a fire she failed to prevent. The issues driving the race, homelessness, public safety, wildfire recovery, and the basic functioning of city government are not going away. 

https://redstate.com/ben-smith/2026/06/03/spencer-pratt-just-did-what-every-la-insider-said-couldnt-be-done-n2202987

James Talarico Compares Unborn Children to Parasites

This isn't the first time a pro-abortion Leftist has compared an unborn child to a parasite, but when that happens, it's usually a claim made by an unscientific troll on X, who posts from his mother's basement. This, however, is James Talarico, the Democrats' current best hope to flip Texas blue.

Talarico has made a name for himself with his brand of progressive Christianity, a belief system that says God is non-binary, that the Bible permits abortion, and that the Ten Commandments are an act of violence, especially when displayed publicly.

That whole 'Thou shalt not kill' thing must strike a nerve, given how radical Talarico is on abortion — he wants federally funded abortion clinics on public land — and that his church pays to take women out of state to obtain abortions.

This is also why Talarico has to dehumanize the unborn, comparing them to tapeworms instead of human beings made in the image and likeness of God.

"The disagreement about the legality of abortion is not a disagreement about life. It's a disagreement about personhood," Talarico said. "No one disagrees that an embryo is biologically alive. We each have trillions of living organisms inside of us right now."

"So the question is, is an embryo a legal person whose rights trump those of a woman," Talarico added. "I don't know many people who would seriously answer yes to that question." 

That's because Talarico lives in a bubble. Most Americans do, in fact, favor some abortion restrictions.

"Legal personhood evolves with life," Talarico said. "And life is change. Without clear or definite boundaries. But the only way we can allow the rights of an embryo to trump the rights of a woman is if we believe a woman is not a full person. And let me remind you that that has been the default belief throughout most of human history."

"Being Christian, and being pro-choice are absolutely consistent," Talarico continued. "Because Christianity is a feminist religion."

Weird how he could say the word 'woman' and not 'neighbor with a uterus' in that sermon. That's what actually trumps the rights of women, and Talarico is all in on the trans agenda.

And they do the same thing to Republicans. We're 'Nazis' or 'fascists' or some other dehumanizing pejorative so they can deny us personhood and create a permission structure by which to harm us.

No one, hopefully.

It's not the unborn children.

The Democrats wanted Talarico. They support what he professes. 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2026/06/03/talarico-unborn-babies-are-tapeworms-n2677157

Fauci’s Foreign National Bat Virus Mad Scientist Vincent Munster and His Researcher Charged with Smuggling Monkeypox into America from African Outbreak

Top NIH virologist and gain-of-function advocate, Vincent Munster, has been charged with allegedly smuggling undeclared pathogen samples into America from Africa.

For years, animal testing watchdog White Coat Waste has documented how Munster’s reckless, cruel experiments on primates and bats waste millions in taxpayer dollars while posing serious biosafety and national security risks.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan announced that Munster, 53, a Dutch citizen and Chief of the Virus Ecology Section at NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Montana, and his colleague Claude Kwe, 38, a Cameroonian research fellow in Munster’s lab, were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to smuggle monkeypox into the United States and making false statements to federal law enforcement.

According to the Justice Department complaint, Munster and Kwe flew into Detroit Metropolitan Airport’s McNamara Terminal on January 25 after traveling from Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, where a monkeypox outbreak was actively underway.

Customs and Border Protection officers noticed the pair carrying a large black plastic case. When questioned, both men falsely claimed it contained only “diagnostics and testing equipment.”

According to the DOJ, “subsequent investigation by CBP and FBI agents revealed that the case actually contained 113 vials in Styrofoam coolers. As of the date of the complaint, the FBI has tested 20 of the 113 vials. Seventeen of them contained deactivated monkeypox virus, one contained the Chickenpox virus, and two contained only human DNA.”

The press release added, “the work of both men is focused on ’emerging viral pathogens’ and how those pathogens ‘cross the species barrier.’ They work at a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory, which employs the highest level of biosafety precautions for scientific research of known and potential human pathogens.”

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. did not mince words: “These NIH experts apparently broke our laws by smuggling viral pathogens on a packed commercial airplane from an outbreak in the Republic of Congo. Let that sink in.”

FBI Detroit Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Runyan added, “No researchers should believe their positions, credentials, or professional status place them above the law… The allegations in this case are serious. They involve the dangerous and unlawful smuggling of deactivated Mpox virus into the United States and alleged efforts to mislead our federal agents.”

This is the exact smuggling incident White Coat Waste exposed weeks ago, as The Gateway Pundit previously reported.

In May, we reported that the FBI had launched a criminal probe into Munster for attempting to bring back dozens of undeclared viral hemorrhagic fever samples, including monkeypox, from Africa without proper permits.

At the time, an NIH whistleblower told White Coat Waste Project that senior officials in Bethesda were in “full cover-up mode” to protect Munster. Both scientists were placed on administrative leave, their HHS directory profiles scrubbed, and the agency referred all questions to the FBI.

The same whistleblower alleged that a separate lab accident at RML, first exposed by White Coat Waste in January, involved a staffer being bitten by a macaque monkey infected with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), a deadly foreign virus.

The monkey was being subjected to NIH’s notorious “maximum-pain” experiments with no pain mitigation whatsoever.

The bite reportedly penetrated the worker’s protective suit.

Instead of being transparent with RML employees, the incident was allegedly hidden from most of the campus, and the exposed staffer was quietly “flown out” to avoid drawing attention.

White Coat Waste, which has been hammering Munster’s taxpayer-funded animal experiments with billboards near the Montana lab for months, was the first to notice and report on his sudden removal from the official NIH employee directory.

Munster’s lab at RML is a high-containment BSL-4 facility focused on how “emerging viral pathogens” cross the species barrier, precisely the kind of gain-of-function-style work long associated with Fauci’s NIAID and the COVID pandemic.

The mad scientist was also the main author on a 2018 NIH experiment exposed by White Coat Waste that infected bats purchased from a Maryland zoo with a Chinese bat coronavirus strain cloned from a virus collected by the Wuhan Institute of Virology and EcoHealth Alliance.

WCW Senior Vice President Justin Goodman appeared on investigative journalist Laura Loomer's show to discuss.

WATCH:

Loomer, who has been working with WCW to expose the deep corruption and pressure the administration to end these barbaric tests once and for all, wrote in a post on X, "White Coat Waste and I are totally vindicated after we broke this story several weeks ago about how NIH was covering up the fact that several foreign born virologists working at NIH under the Trump admin at Rocky Mountain Laboratory, a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory, snuck lethal pathogens into the US. They work at the same lab where an Ebola-infected monkey bit an NIH researcher, and this was also covered up by @DrJBhattacharya and NIH."

WCW has repeatedly called on Congress and now, on the Trump administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to defund and decommission the Rocky Mountain Laboratory entirely.

The whistleblower’s letter to WCW reinforced those concerns, claiming the cover-up culture at NIH continues unchecked even after Fauci’s departure.

“RML needs to be defunded and decommissioned before Munster and his cronies cause another pandemic,” the letter warned.

In 2023, WCW teamed up with then-Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Montana Republican, in an attempt to slash Munster’s salary to $1 as part of an amendment to the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. The amendment read, “Reduces the salary of Vincent Munster, Chief, Virus Ecology Section, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to $1.”

Unfortunately, it ultimately failed.

If convicted, both researchers face up to five years in federal prison.

President and founder of White Coat Waste, Anthony Bellotti, said in a statement provided to The Gateway Pundit last month:

“For years, White Coat Waste investigations have exposed how Vincent Munster’s reckless, Fauci-funded animal experiments with Chinese coronaviruses, Ebola, and other foreign bioagents threaten public health and national security. Munster was even part of the original proposal to engineer COVID-like viruses at the Wuhan lab, where White Coat Waste first uncovered and ended Fauci’s funding for gain-of-function animal tests that almost certainly prompted the pandemic. White Coat Waste has led efforts to shut down Munster’s maximum-pain animal labs, and we are now calling out their continued funding with our ‘WTF, RFK?’ billboards near his NIH lab in Montana. Munster’s wasteful and dangerous animal experiments are a recipe for disaster, and if he is suspended—as our sources suggest—and finally held accountable, taxpayers and animals should celebrate.”

Special Agent in Charge Marcus L. Sykes of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General said in a statement, "The arrest of these individuals on serious federal charges sends a clear and unmistakable message that no one—including HHS employees who have an obligation to safeguard our federal programs—is above the law. Any deliberate effort to conceal and smuggle biological materials into the United States without proper authorization is a breach of the public’s trust and could have placed the public at risk. HHS-OIG will continue to work alongside our law enforcement partners to ensure that anyone who is entrusted with protecting the health and well-being of the public is held fully accountable.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/06/faucis-foreign-national-bat-virus-mad-scientist-vincent/