Every time voters face a ballot initiative of some sort that would raise their taxes, proponents of such measures will trot out any of the following components to champion the cause - school children, policemen, firemen or the release of criminals from jails.

But this time, the June 3 "NBC Nightly News" waited until after California voters denied passage of initiatives that would raise their taxes to say, "I told you so." NBC correspondent George Lewis followed up a dire, one-sided June 3 "Today Show" report with a "Nightly News" segment that blamed the budget cuts for one supposed hardship story - a California school district forced to cancel summer school, which in turn made it impossible for one child's mother to look for a job.

A night after ABC's Laura Marquez blamed California's budget deficit on the citizenry's “unwillingness to raise taxes” and a law “mandating an almost unachievable two-thirds vote by the legislature to raise taxes,” on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News George Lewis similarly ignored soaring state spending as he focused on victims of upcoming budget cuts and asserted: “Part of California's problem is that it takes a two-thirds vote in the state legislature to raise taxes.”

Though the ballot initiatives turned down by voters on Tuesday involved raising and/or extending an income tax surcharge, the sales tax and the tax on cars, Lewis euphemistically described them as “a series of ballot measures, backed by [Governor Arnold] Schwarzenegger, aimed at easing the deficit.” Lewis concentrated on potential victims: “$5.3 billion would come out of education in the Governor's proposed budget, $2 billion from health programs and hundreds of millions from the state's prison system” while a college student, Lewis paraphrased, complained they “are in a bind as California hikes fees to make ends meet.”

Concluding a Thursday NBC Nightly News story on summer movies, correspondent George Lewis previewed the new Star Trek film, set to open on Friday, and found it relevant to highlight how “some Trekkies have compared the Spock character, the product of a mixed marriage between a human and a Vulcan, to President Obama.” Those “some Trekkies” would be Newsweek's Steve Daly, author of last week's cover story, “We’re All Trekkies Now,” who proposed in a soundbite: “In a certain sense, Spock the character has dealt with some of the same prejudices and problems that our new President does.”

In the piece for the May 4 edition of the magazine, Daly asserted: “Spock's cool, analytical nature feels more fascinating and topical than ever now that we've put a sort of Vulcan in the White House.” And “like Obama, Spock is the product of a mixed marriage (actually, an interstellar mixed marriage), and he suffers blunt manifestations of prejudice as a result.” Daly also hailed how “with the willfully hegemonic Bush administration now gone, the tenets of [original Star Trek creator Gene] Roddenberry's fictional universe feel very much in step with current events,” since:

The Obama foreign policy, at least for now, emphasizes cross-cultural exchange and eschews imperialistic swagger. That sounds very much in sync with the Federation's Prime Directive, which stipulates that humanity should observe but never interfere with alien cultures (no Iraq-style invasions, in other words).

NBC climastrologer and all-around nice guy George Lewis said on Sunday's "Today" show that global warming is at least partly the fault of mankind. More disturbing, however, is the fact that exactly zero consideration was given to actual scientific criticism of such a viewpoint.

CARTER ROBERTS, World Wildlife Fund: We're definitely asking people to do a couple things. To turn off the lights, but also to cast a light on one of the greatest problems in the 21st century.

GEORGE LEWIS, NBC News correspondent: That problem, global climate change and the role that humans play in it. [Picture of industrial site, complete with smokestacks]

This time, the "CBS Evening News" traveled all the way across the pond to pushing the alarmists' global warming agenda.

The March 27 "Evening News" went to the coastlines of England to show melting ice caps causing people to lose their homes.

"Much of the effects of climate change have been couched in terms of if or when its effects will be felt," CBS correspondent Mark Phillips said. "Well, here there is no ‘if.' And when is now. So choices are being made. It's called managed retreat. Some areas of coastline deemed indefensible are being abandoned. Climate change is producing winners and losers, and Diana Wrightson and the others here have already lost."

“Don’t let that scenic [Aquafina] logo fool you, this water is not bottled from a mountain stream,” said Rob Marciano CNN’s “American Morning.”

Aquafina, the country's best-selling brand of bottled water, was portrayed as shamefully dishonest by "CBS Evening News," "NBC Nightly News," ABC "World News with Charles Gibson" on July 27. And by the July 30 "American Morning."

PepsiCo, the bottler of Aquafina, was under attack the day it announced labeling changes for the product from "P.W.S." to "Public Water Source."