Thursday's CNN Newsroom hyped the Supreme Court's decision that again upheld ObamaCare as a "huge win for the President of the United States," as Wolf Blitzer put it. Gloria Borger and John King tied the Court decision to Congress passing the President's fast-track trade legislation earlier in the week. Borger trumpeted, "You have trade legislation being approved – huge win for the President. You have this reaffirmation of ObamaCare...huge for his legacy." King added, "This may well be the best week of his second term."
Kathleen Sebelius
By Curtis Houck | December 31, 2014 | 11:33 AM EST
Each of the network morning shows devoted some time on Wednesday to looking back at the biggest news stories of year and, while they certainly could not have included every story in the allotted time, they all failed to spend even a few seconds on topics such as Jonathan Gruber, pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, President Obama’s unpopularity, and the Hobby Lobby case to name a few.
In addition, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC each mentioned the midterm elections and how Republicans were able to win control of the Senate (in addition to the House), they devoted a scant 21 seconds to the topic over the course of their roundups, which totaled 42 minutes and 50 seconds.
Networks Skip Former HHS Secretary Sebelius Suggesting ‘Financial Literacy’ of Americans Is ‘Very Low’
By Curtis Houck | December 5, 2014 | 12:21 AM EST In an interview with USA Today published on its website Tuesday, former Obama administration Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius tried to distance herself from the numerous comments by ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber, but still found a way to sound like Gruber when explaining why Americans oppose the health care law.
Speaking with USA Today’s Susan Page, Sebelius remarked that “[a] lot of Americans have no idea what insurance is about” and “the financial literacy of a lot of people” can be characterized as “very low.”
By Cal Thomas | April 16, 2014 | 5:56 PM EDT
Dictionary.com offers two definitions for scapegoat: "1. A person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place; 2. Chiefly biblical. A goat let loose in the wilderness on Yom Kippur after the high priest symbolically laid the sins of the people on its head. Lev. 16:8,10,26."
Both definitions seem to fit last week's announcement of the "resignation" of Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, who presided over the disastrous rollout of the government's website, healthcare.gov, which was supposed to provide easy access for people who wished to sign up for Obamacare.
By NB Staff | April 15, 2014 | 11:17 PM EDT
"Al Sharpton is now denying he was an FBI informant, saying it's a dubious assertion. You know, just like Sharpton’s dubious assertion that he's a reverend."
Watch our very own Jodi Miller zing Sharpton as well as exiting HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama, and politician-turned-amateur bass guitarist Mike Huckabee by clicking play on the embedded video below the page break. To get NewsBusted straight to your inbox, click here. To subscribe at YouTube, visit here.
Univisión y Telemundo, en contraste con ABC, CBS y NBC, incluyen críticos en la cobertura de la renuncia de Sebelius
By Ken Oliver-Méndez | April 15, 2014 | 5:46 PM EDT Univisión y Telemundo se apuntaron una a su favor en la batalla por el periodismo honesto. En contraste marcado con los noticieros estelares de habla inglesa de las cadenas ABC, CBS y NBC, el pasado viernes tanto Noticiero Univisión como Noticiero Telemundo incluyeron conservadores en su cobertura de la dimisión de la secretaria de Salud del presidente Obama, Kathleen Sebelius.
By Ken Oliver-Méndez | April 15, 2014 | 11:47 AM EDT
In the battle for balanced news, score one each for Univision and Telemundo. Unlike the CBS, NBC and ABC evening news, both Noticiero Univision and Noticiero Telemundo on Friday night included soundbites from conservative leaders on the resignation of President Obama’s HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius.
On Univision, correspondent Lourdes Meluzá ran a clip of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who noted that Sebelius has been the principle face of “the disaster that has been, is and will continue to be ObamaCare.” Even more noteworthy, Univision’s report also featured Tea Party Patriots President Jenny Beth Martin, who called ObamaCare the former Secretary’s “legacy of shame” and said Sebelius “could go down in history as one of the most incompetent Cabinet secretaries in the history of the Republic."
By P.J. Gladnick | April 13, 2014 | 6:14 PM EDT
Andrea Mitchell needs to turn in her journalism card...now!
She completely blew the opportunity to ask outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a question that would have shed light on whether she voluntarily resigned or, as many have speculated, she was fired by the White House. Despite interviewing Sebelius for over five minutes on Meet The Press (video after the jump), Mitchell absurdly neglected to point out a big discrepancy in Sebelius' accounts of her departure.
PBS Analyst Mark Shields Says Sebelius 'Stepped Up Manfully' to Take Obamacare Blame; David Brooks Says She's No 'Dynamo'
By Tim Graham | April 12, 2014 | 9:13 AM EDT
While HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius was getting a polite shove out the door, PBS NewsHour analyst Mark Shields offered a note of disclosure: “Well, first of all, let me just admit up front, Kathleen Sebelius has been a personal friend. For 46 years, I have known her.” He even oddly said she “stepped up manfully, to use a bad adverb” in taking the blame for Obamacare.
But Shields and his usual echo-chamber David Brooks disagreed. Brooks said she wasn’t a “dynamo” at HHS, which caused Shields to start touting her. Anchor Judy Woodruff had gently asked, like a good feminist, “What’s her legacy?”
By Tim Graham | April 11, 2014 | 10:25 PM EDT
White House spokesman Jay Carney was sneering at reporters again Friday.
The Washington Free Beacon reports that Jared Rizzi, a reporter with Sirius XM Radio, was accused of being “pretty lame” by Carney in questioning how resigning HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was absent from the podium and went unmentioned in the president’s April 1 “victory lap” for Obamacare signups. (Video below.)
By Scott Whitlock | April 11, 2014 | 12:29 PM EDT
All three network morning shows on Friday highlighted the departure of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Good Morning America's Jon Karl insisted that the exit was a "chance for her to leave on a relatively high note." CBS This Morning's Jan Crawford claimed that "Sebelius made clear the decision to leave was hers." Over on NBC's Today, Chuck Todd dished dirt, explaining, "In addition to the management issues, the White House also lost confidence in her ability to sell the product publicly."
He gossiped, "Senior aides were not happy with how she struggled in what should have been a friendly interview with Jon Stewart." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] However, if Sebelius struggled, Today viewers didn't know about it for weeks after the October 7th Daily Show appearance. It wasn't until October 31, 2013 that the botched interview was mentioned on Today. Back then, Todd briefly conceded, "When she went in front of Jon Stewart at the Daily Show, that became a big problem. It became another PR problem." Despite this "PR problem," Today viewers didn't see an actual clip until Friday.
By Ken Shepherd | March 26, 2014 | 4:28 PM EDT
"More time for health sign-up" cheered the Washington Post front-page headline for Amy Goldstein's March 26 story on the administration's latest ObamaCare delay, this time for the individual mandate which requires Americans to be insured so as to avoid paying a "tax" penalty. In an amazing dereliction of her journalistic duty, Goldstein utterly failed to mention that just two weeks earlier HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified to Congress that, in fact, the March 31 sign-up deadline was not going to move.
Goldstein, of course, was too busy parroting the administration's talking points and turning to supposedly non-ideological "consumer advocates" who hailed the deadline extension (emphasis mine):