By Tom Blumer | March 4, 2013 | 10:37 PM EST

According to the first paragraph of Alicia's Caldwell's report today at the Associated Press, aka the Adminstration's Press, Homeland Security Secretary Janey Napolitano told attendees at a Politico breakfast this morning (Politico's coverage is here) that, in Caldwell's words, "U.S. airports, including Los Angeles International and O'Hare International in Chicago, are already experiencing delays as a result of automatic federal spending cuts." Additionally, again in Caldwell's words, "she expects a cascading effect during the week, with wait times expected to double in worst cases."

Well, either someone forgot to tell airport spokesperson and the travel industry to fall in line, or said officials are refusing, according to follow-up stories at the Politico and the UK Telegraph. Notably, the AP had no such follow-up story at its national site as of 10 p.m. ET tonight, but did have a story by Pauline Jelinek ("HOW BUDGET CUTS COULD AFFECT YOU") published at the about the same time as the two follow-ups just noted dutifully echoing Napolitano's talking points. Excerpts from both follow-up stories are after the jump.

By Tom Blumer | February 17, 2013 | 12:59 PM EST

Jesse L. Jackson Jr. was indicted on Friday, February 15, the final day before a three-day weekend, even though the information necessary to indict appears to have been in place for some time. Though it may be out there and I'm certainly willing to stand corrected, from what I can tell, the U.S. Department of Justice made no formal announcement when it filed its charges (10-page PDF). Based on the 12:55 p.m. ET time stamp at a Politico story reporting what "the government will allege" and the 1:03 p.m. Pacific Time (i.e., 4:03 p.m. ET) of what appears to have been the first breaking news story from the Associated Press, the government appears to have waited until well into the afternoon to file its charges.

The reporting on Jackson's indictment mostly deferred identifying his party affiliation for several paragraphs, and in some instances, including the aforementioned AP breaking news item, omitted it entirely.

By Tom Blumer | February 12, 2013 | 8:19 PM EST

Former Fort Hood police sergeant Kimberly Munley, one of two officers who helped stop Major Nidal Hasan's deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas in November 2009, and who was a guest at President Obama's 2010 State of the Union address (something the Politico chose to remind everyone of just yesterday), now says, according to ABC News, that "Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of."

Excerpts from ABC's web story in anticipation of a Nightline report tonight follow the jump (bolds are mine):

By Scott Whitlock | January 15, 2013 | 4:21 PM EST

An article on ABCNews.com offered no criticism or opposition to the euthanization of two deaf brothers in Belgium. The country's lawmakers, are considering expanding the law which allows doctors to kill patients who are "suffering." 

ABCNews.com writer Russell Goldman quoted Dr. David Dufour, describing the last moments of the two deaf brothers who were going blind: "They had a cup of coffee in the hall. It went well and a rich conversation. Then the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful." Serene and beautiful?

By Tom Blumer | December 20, 2012 | 1:02 AM EST

At his news conference on Wednesday, President Obama opened with a statement of over 1,100 words, all of it on gun violence, including his announcement that "I’ve asked the Vice President to lead an effort that includes members of my Cabinet and outside organizations to come up with a set of concrete proposals no later than January -- proposals that I then intend to push without delay."

That should reasonably have been expected to put the gun control issue to bed for the rest of the day. How many meaningful questions could reporters possibly pose after all of that (other than the one Jake Tapper of ABC asked, which will be seen later in the post)? But as Ben Sisario at the New York Times's Media Decoder blog reported Wednesday afternoon, that didn't satisfy many media critics, who -- with Sisario seeming to agree -- expected and wanted to see an all-gun-control, all-the-time exercise, and were angry that it didn't unfold that way (bolds are mine throughout this post):

By Noel Sheppard | November 15, 2012 | 5:25 PM EST

This will surely cheer up Republicans suffering from post-election depression.

Former President Bill Clinton told Mitt Romney Monday he would have won the presidency if not for Hurricane Sandy.

By Christian Robey | November 14, 2012 | 10:30 AM EST

Over the past week, the media have been obsessively attributing the GOP’s election loss to the party’s embrace of conservatism. It began with a predictable assault on the standard bearer of conservative thought over the airwaves, Rush Limbaugh. On election night, NBC’s Brian Williams opined that Rush was a liability for the GOP. And it didn’t stop with Williams.

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe David Frum seconded that sentiment by claiming that Republicans were “fleeced, exploited and lied to” by the “conservative entertainment complex,” another obvious dig at Limbaugh and talk radio. Scarborough agreed, proclaiming that the GOP needs to stop listening to the “most extreme people” in the Party. Rounding out the week on Sunday, the all-liberal panel on NBC’s Meet The Press, piled on the anti-Limbaugh message: the loss was due to Limbaugh and the “loons and wackos” of the conservative base.

By Tom Blumer | October 31, 2012 | 9:55 PM EDT

A video of a mother trying to console her crying four year-old daughter about the fact that the election campaign season will soon be over has allegedly gone viral. I say "allegedly" because the original of the video involved shows ove 700,000 hits at its YouTube results listing, but only about 19,000 at the original video itself.

Anyway, the four-year old is Abigael Evans, and her reaction was to hearing yet another NPR report on the election in the car while riding with her mother Elizabeth. ABC's Jilian Fama has covered the story. A revealing statement from Abigael's mother appears to demonstrate how blatantly biased NPR's coverage of the presidential election campaign has been:

By Matt Vespa | October 20, 2012 | 7:33 PM EDT

In another hit piece on Mitt Romney, ABC News’ Matthew Mosk penned a 1,667-word column on how Romney’s in-laws could be a “problem.”  According to Mosk, "Ann Romney's brother Roderick Davies, who filed for bankruptcy in 2010, and nephew Ryan Davies, who oversaw a now-bankrupt green energy venture, have both been out on the campaign trail to offer support for Romney. But back in Utah, the two men have left a trail of unhappy business partners, a number of whom spoke with ABC News to express concern about how the two might try and capitalize on a Romney presidency.”   So, in Mosk’s mind, the allegedly unscrupulous activities of two grown men are all Mitt Romney’s fault.

By Matt Vespa | October 11, 2012 | 6:45 PM EDT

With the Vice Presidential debate hours away, new developments concerning its moderator, Martha Raddatz have been disturbing. As Joel B. Pollak at Breitbart reported today, during the 1990 Massachusetts gubernatorial race, Raddatz, who was then known as Martha Bradlee (she was married to Ben Bradlee Jr.), moderated the debate where, like a good race-baiting liberal, she asked Democratic candidate John Silber “why he had not campaigned more frequently in poor minority communities, prompting him to respond: "There is no point in my making a speech on crime control to a group of drug addicts." 

By Tim Graham | October 8, 2012 | 11:30 PM EDT

Emily Friedman of ABC News reported Monday that “Mitt Romney ordered his motorcade to make an abrupt U-turn in rural Virginia today, after zipping by a group of elementary school students waving in the front yard of the school, so he could go back and meet them.” ABC's video shows thrilled grade-schoolers in Fairfield, Virginia. But no nice move goes unpunished by the press.

Check out the AP picture distributed across the country. It's unbelievable. It honestly looks like a little girl is gaping at Romney from behind. This accompanied a snippy AP story by Lynn Elber on how Romney couldn't find time to take questions from kids for a Nickelodeon special. It's not just on Yahoo! (It's also here and here.....) Elber began by lecturing:

By Tom Blumer | October 7, 2012 | 11:43 PM EDT

I originally thought that the story of Linda Morrison which will follow after the jump would be all about the Obama campaign completely misreading the situation surrounding a question asked of GOP vice-presidential nominee at a Clinton County, Iowa town hall forum. It turns out that it's actually biased reports from their good friends in the establishment press which led the overeager campaign to do something embarrassing.

Here's how Shushannah Walshe at ABC News described the question Ryan was asked and the answer he gave (bolds are mine throughout this post):