Elizabeth Leamy

As reported on NewsBusters recently, the kill-joy food police are here just in time for the holidays.

 On Nov. 19 ABC's "Good Morning America" aired a recycled study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a liberal activist group that, if it were given the power, would ban everything from remote controls to Chinese food to donuts to casual dining. But even without that power, the anti-food activists still have the networks eating out of their hand.

For the third time in just two months, ABC's early morning show devoted an entire segment to a CSPI study. The past two studies reported that health labels were too "confusing" for consumers while "leafy greens" were life-threatening. Now CSPI's latest publication attacks movie theater popcorn.

Reporting on the Obama administration’s ‘Cash for Clunkers’ car buying program running out of money, CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes offered a mixed message: "‘Cash for Clunkers’ has been such a runaway success....The program is so popular...word spread it would be suspended...because of fears that sales would soon swallow up the $1 billion for rebates the government had set aside."

At the top of Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez declared: "It’s a week old and incredibly popular. But is the government’s ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program coming to a screeching halt? We’ll see why it may run out of gas and why so many are angry." She later introduced Cordes’ report by explaining: "It appears that ‘Cash for Clunkers’ could be kaput. There’s been a lot of criticism that the week-old federal program is just too confusing. But the White House says it’s so popular that it’s already running out of money, so they’re reevaluating."

If the producers of "Good Morning America" need something to be thankful for this holiday season, one might suggest their ability to create downbeat economic news to report to fill in gaps in their daily programming.

See video here.

"[O]ne of the last parts of our travel survival guide, our Thanksgiving survival guide, of course, is the rising cost of the Thanksgiving dinner," "GMA" host Diane Sawyer said on the November 20 "GMA.". "As we said, the average price of a Thanksgiving dinner is up 11 percent from last year. So are there some ways to stretch the dollars and have no one know."

Also included in the segment was a story meant to tug at your heartstrings - a grandmother being forced to cut corners to make enough for her family's Thanksgiving feast.