The Lead

For the second time in just over a week, CNN aired a misleading on-screen graphic. On Wednesday's The Lead With Jake Tapper, during live coverage of President Obama's speech to a White House summit on "countering violent extremism," a lower third chyron stated, "Obama: Must 'Stigmatize' Muslim Community."

On Thursday night, the major broadcast networks declined to cover reports that one of the five Taliban detainees swapped for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in May 2014 has been seeking to rejoin the terrorism ranks by contacting Taliban members back in Afghanistan. The news, which was broken by CNN Thursday afternoon, came following reports on Wednesday from Fox News and NBC News that the Army could be…

As ABC and NBC continued to censor any mention of the disparaging comments made by ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber from their Thursday night newscasts, CBS aired second story on Gruber with this one (and the other coming from Thursday’s CBS This Morning) airing on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. While the report by CBS News national correspondent Wyatt Andrews covered what Gruber…

I think this makes six videos (CNN says they have Number 4, and I believe this is Number 5) of Obamacare co-architect Jonathan Gruber giving away the Obama administration's comprehensively deceptive game in drafting and promoting the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The most relevant 40-second snip is at the YouTube account and a Thursday afternoon post by the indispensable Jim Hoft at…

The most recent CNN/Opinion Research poll covering October 24-26 shows that 68 percent of those surveyed said that they are "very angry ... or somewhat angry ... about the way things are going in the country today," and that 60 percent are "very scared" or "somewhat scared." CNN's web coverage and the poll report presented on Jake Tapper's show today relayed that info. But, predictably, the poll…

On Wednesday's The Lead, CNN's Jake Tapper tried to pull former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney out of acting like an apologist for President Obama. Tapper turned to his guest, who had just spent an entire segment defending his former boss's ISIS policy, and asked, "What is the difficulty in getting Arab allies to kick in with military assistance? Jay, you don't work for the White House…

Wednesday's NBC Nightly News was the sole Big Three evening newscast to notice the criticism of the Obama administration banning U.S. airliners from traveling to Israel. Prominent politicians from both sides of the political spectrum, including Senator Ted Cruz and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have denounced this move by the FAA. Senator Cruz accused the administration of using…

It's supposed to be the "most transparent administration in history" yet the federal government is placing restrictions on the press so severe that you would think they were visiting the super secret Area 51 rather than the Ft. Sill Unaccompanied Alien Children facility in Oklahoma. Congressman Jim Bridenstine of that state recently tried to investigate at the site but was rebuffed by maximum…

On Thursday's The Lead on CNN, James Allen Fox used actual crime data to splash cold water on a liberal talking point claiming that mass shootings on the rise: "It's a horrific event when four, five, twelve people are gunned down...But let's not think that this is an epidemic." Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, also pointed out that the now-expired "assault weapons" ban…

CNN’s Jake Tapper interviewed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy on his The Lead with Jake Tapper program on Monday, June 2 and used the opportunity to hit the Obama official over new regulations aimed at reducing CO2 emissions by 30 percent by the year 2030.  Throughout the discussion, Tapper grilled McCarthy over the lack of Democratic support for the new…

In discussing President Obama's Wednesday press conference on the Veterans Administration wait-list scandal, CNN's Drew Griffin, identified by the network's Jake Tapper as "the reporter who began this whole story with his investigation into the Phoenix VA," appeared to barely contain himself as he described the "disconnect between what's happening out here in the country and what the president…

Emily Bazelon apparently has found the opening of the 9/11 Memorial Museum in lower Manhattan as a perfect excuse to suggest that conservatives are particularly prone – compared to other Americans –  to buy into the absurd conspiracy theories of the so-called 9/11 Truther movement. But the most prominent of 9/11 Truthers in the national spotlight are celebrities and media personalities whose…

Today White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough kept defending the record of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinkseki over his handling of the Veterans Administration hospitals scandal on CNN's The Lead. Finally an increasingly agitated Jake Tapper grew frustrated with the excuses until he exploded in anger: "How Many Dead Veterans Do You Need?" It was an all too familiar administration two…

CNN's Jake Tapper gave a full segment to Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson calling Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas an "Uncle Tom," but the broadcast networks completely ignored the controversy on Wednesday evening. The networks' blackout of a Democrat using a racial insult against a Justice shows a clear double standard after their deluge of coverage of Los Angeles Clippers owner…