Free Republic

ABC is reporting that it is now almost certain Congress and the White House will not reach an agreement to avoid a government shutdown. On Sunday’s This Week, ABC’s chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl said, “I would now put the chances of a government shutdown at 99.9 percent” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's a classic example of the MSM's use of sympathetic individual anecdotes to manipulate public opinion in favor of more and bigger government. Today's Good Morning America segment on the looming government shutdown, narrated by former New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny, offered the stories of just two people, both African-Americans, who could be hurt by a government shutdown. And check out the screen graphic: not to dramatize things or nuthin', but ABC plaintively wonders how federal workers would "survive." ABC could have balanced its report with stories of younger people who will see their health insurance premiums double or...

Here's another name to add to the "name that party" file: Michael Thornsbury. The Mingo County, West Virginia circuit court judge was the subject of a federal indictment on Wednesday "after federal authorities allege he targeted his ex-lover's husband and used his position on the bench to manipulate criminal charges against the man," Kate White of the Charleston [W.V.] Gazette reported yesterday. The Mountain State has partisan judicial elections and Thornsbury is a Democrat. Both ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today covered the bizarre story on their August 16 programs, but both neglected to mention Thornsbury's party affiliation.For his...

ABC News editor Don Ennis strolled into the newsroom in May wearing a little black dress and an auburn wig and announced he was transgender and splitting from his wife. He wanted to be called Dawn. But now he says he suffered from a two-day bout of amnesia that has made him realize he wants to live his life again as Don.Fortunately, my memories of the last 14 years have since returned. But what did not return was my identity as Dawn,” said Ennis, who had been wearing lipstick, skirts and heels. “I am writing to let you know I’m...

In-mid May, new Obama scandals piled up at the White House. A portrait emerged of a president whose Internal Revenue Service was harassing his enemies, a State Department that lied to the world about the fatal debacle in Benghazi and a Justice Department spying on reporters who might leak anti-Obama information. But several national journalists announced that Obama had been scandal-free for the first four years-and-change of his administration. On NPR’s “Morning Edition,” anchorman Steve Inskeep asserted to Cokie Roberts that “this administration has been described — I don’t even know how many times — as remarkably scandal-free.” On ABC’s...

The two Rasmussen polls I featured last week didn’t ask specifically whether the shooting was justified, only whether the verdict was. Rasmussen found a near-majority in agreement with the jury (48/34). ABC/WaPo: A 41/41 dead heat, with the question of whether the shooting was justified splitting 26/40 against. How could the public be divided on the verdict but much less divided on the shooting itself? Because, I assume, one question deals more with moral culpability and the other deals with legal culpability. There’s some subset of people here who probably believe (a) either Zimmerman’s at fault for getting out of...

View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck is making the jump from network to cable, with the announcement today that she will be leaving ABC’s The View to co-host Fox & Friends. In Fox’s press release, Hasselbeck says, “I have been a long-time fan of Fox & Friends and am excited to be joining their team in September as it is an honor to call the FOX News Channel my new television home.” The press release also includes Ailes welcoming Hasselbeck and praising her for her “warm and engaging personality,” and a statement from Barbara Walters saying, “We will miss her and wish...

University of Virginia student spent a night and good part of the next day in jail after seven plain-clothes agents from the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control division ambushed her. The student, 20-year-old Elizabeth Daly, made the mistake of walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream in a dark supermarket parking lot near the UVA campus...

When a half-dozen men and a woman in street clothes closed in on University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly, 20, she and two roommates panicked. That led to Daly spending a night and an afternoon in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Her initial offense? Walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream just purchased from the Harris Teeter in the Barracks Road Shopping Center for a sorority benefit fundraiser. A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police...

A long time ago in a media world far, far away, Katie Couric was once seen as a competent, likable, down to earth co-host of NBC's "Today Show." She was appealing, smart, and accessible, But success ruined Couric. Over time, she became a Media Diva and a divisive, hysterical left-wing partisan. Whatever your politics, it is impossible to dispute that Couric went Hollywood -- and narcissism is never pretty In the wake of her chilling metamorphosis, Couric has only met failure. But her latest endeavor, a daytime talk show, is making Couric's time at CBS look like the glory days...

Richard Grenell, a political consultant and media commentator reported today via Twitter that NBC’s Mark Murray, senior political editor for NBC News wife, Sasha is an Obama appointee but never publicly disclosed it. Grenell asked Murray yesterday if he was married to an Obama appointee and why it was not disclosed. Murray told him that he hasn’t publicly disclosed that his wife is an Obama appointee because he told NBC officials and they didn’t care. Murray also told Grenell that his first wife worked for Ray Lahood so disclosing her as an Obama appointee wasn’t necessary. Murray’s wife, Sasha Johnson...

Earlier this week, I wrote about the dirty tricks campaign against journalist Amir Taheri following his revelation that, in a private meeting in Iraq last July with Iraqi leaders, Barack Obama tried to persuade them to delay the agreement being hammered out with the US government on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to this account, which quoted Iraq’s foreign minister Hoshya Zebari (pictured), Obama had thus privately sought to undermine an American government foreign policy initiative – an explosive revelation. Taheri subsequently dismissed as tendentious Camp Obama’s response which he said deliberately confused two separate agreements under...

The studio space at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. is changing hands, Broadcasting & Cable’s John Eggerton reports. Next month, ABC’s “This Week” will vacate the space and return to the network’s Washington bureau, and Al Jazeera America will move in. ... Al Jazeera America, which B&C reports will have both office space and editing facilities in the Newseum, is preparing for its launch later this year. The network recently hired Adam May, a local reporter from Baltimore, as a D.C.-based national correspondent.

CNN’s Jake Tapper has an e-mail regarding those famous Benghazi talking points. This particular document, Tapper’s story suggests: 1) Puts the White House’s role in editing the Benghazi talking points in a different light; 2) Raises questions regarding those who had leaked previous iterations of the talking points; 3) Outs ABC News and the Weekly Standard as purveyors of inaccurate information! The e-mail obtained by Tapper was sent by Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodesjust after 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14, 2012, just as the White House was trying to nail down the talking points

Fifty six days after the grisly trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell began, ABC broke its self-imposed blackout and finally offered coverage. World News anchor Diane Sawyer belatedly told viewers that Gosnell was convicted on three counts of first degree murder against newborn babies, as well as on a slew of other charges. Terry Moran explained, "For two months, jurors heard often shocking, grisly testimony." He described the details as a "house of horrors." A house of horrors that ABC took 56 days to notice. As the Media Research Center has aggressively documented, ABC went from March 18, 2013

THE capital is in the throes of déjà vu and preview as it plunges back into Clinton Rules, defined by a presidential aide on the hit ABC show “Scandal” as damage control that goes like this: “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.” The conservatives appearing on Benghazi-obsessed Fox News are a damage patrol with an approach that goes like this: “Lies, paranoia, subpoena, impeach, Watergate, Iran-contra.” (Though now that the I.R.S. has confessed to targeting Tea Party groups, maybe some of the paranoia is justified.) Welcome to a glorious spring weekend of accusation and...

One of the mysteries in the Benghazi scandal has been the role of David Petraeus, who was then the Director of the CIA but was forced to resign in a personal scandal shortly thereafter. While the White House and State Department tried to cobble together talking points to explain away the terrorist attack that took four American lives, what did Petraeus do? According to new information reported for the first time by Jonathan Karl on ABC News’ This Week earlier this morning, Petraeus rejected the final version as “useless” —

Not that anyone will care, but an ABC news report has nuked the Obama administration's claim that they only made 1 edit to the talking points. The Blaze

Today's blockbuster ABC News report about White House and State Dept. involvement in revising the CIA’s Benghazi talking points has provided Republicans with new talking points in their effort to discredit former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. But Jonathan Karl, the ABC News White House correspondent who landed the scoop, says not so fast. The emails obtained by Karl show that State Dept. spokesman Victoria Nuland raised objections to a paragraph in the talking points mentioning threats from extremists linked to Al Qaeda. When a round of revisions did not satisfy her concerns, she wrote back: “These changes don’t resolve all of...

He brutally killed unborn babies by jamming medical scissors in the back of their necks, but the major network television stations have engaged in a blackout of coverage of his murder trial. To response, 20 prominent leaders of the conservative movement have joined Media Research Center President Brent Bozell in demanding the broadcast networks stop censoring coverage. They are also upset at the lack of coverage of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates lobbyist who testified in favor of allowing the killing of children who survive botched abortions. MRC’s Culture and Media Institute finds that ABC, CBS, and NBC...