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Emails Reportedly Show Close Coordination Between CNN Team, Emanuel on ‘Chicagoland’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Chicago Tribune reviewed more than 700 emails pertaining to the making and filming of “Chicagoland,” an eight-part series which finished airing last week.

Though coordination can be expected in any documentary series, the emails reportedly show the Emanuel administration playing an active role in the narrative — and producers encouraging them to play ball.

One email showed executive producer Marc Levin appealing to the mayor’s office last May to be “on the phone in his SUV, in city hall with key advisers and his kitchen cabinet and meeting with CPS head BBB (Barbara Byrd-Bennett) and with CPD (Superintendent Garry) McCarthy.”

The first episode of the series showed several such scenes.

In a separate exchange, the daughter of a PR executive who helped arrange the CNN/Emanuel project reportedly emailed the mayor’s press secretary asking for “the list of story/interview ideas that you and your team were going to put together” for the producers.

Read more from this story HERE.

CNN: Flight 370 Swallowed by ‘Black Hole’?

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Photo Credit: CNN ScreengrabBy Josh Feldman.

CNN’s Don Lemon has been entertaining all sorts of theories about the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, including the chance something “supernatural” happened, but on Wednesday night, he actually asked panelists about the possibility a black hole was involved.

Lemon brought this up along with other “conspiracy theories” people have been floating on Twitter, including people noting the eerie parallels to Lost and The Twilight Zone, and wondered, “is it preposterous” to consider a black hole as a possibility?

Read more from this story HERE.

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Top U.S. General: Look For Missing Jet In Pakistan

By WND.

Retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney — the recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, Air Medal with 17 oak-leaf clusters, Distinguished Service Medal and other honors — is suggesting searchers looking for the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 take a look at possible landing spots in Taliban-controlled Pakistan.

In an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, McInerney, now a contributor to the network, said his recommendation was based on information from sources he was unwilling to disclose on television as well as the analysis of an intelligence service called LIGNET.

McInerney said the free world needs to be worried until the location of the jet, which disappeared March 8 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, is determined.

“My concern is if this airplane could be used as a bearer of a weapon of mass destruction or even conventional munitions that could attack a carrier, Israel, our allies,” he said. “We have to be very alert until we know exactly where this airplane is.”

Investigators believe the airplane changed course shortly after takeoff and headed West for as long as seven hours. They are looking into the politics of the pilot, who had a Boeing 777 simulator set up in his own home from which data recently had been deleted.

Read more from this story HERE.

CNN’s Rampage Against Ted Nugent Leads to Disastrous Ratings (+video)

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Photo Credit: AFPBy John Nolte.

CNN is a cable news network in its death throes. As ratings return to near-historic lows, CNN chief Jeff Zucker is obviously making terrible decisions while in panic-mode. Just-released ratings show that CNN’s stupid, wildly hypocritical and hysterical rampage against Ted Nugent last week led to a disastrous Friday.

Narratives are all about momentum. You want to build interest as the viewer wonders where the story will go. Across almost every one of its shows, CNN’s stable of mostly left-wing anchors — especially Wolf Blitzer, Carol Costello, and Ashleigh Banfield — drove the phony Nugent story using every trick in the book. This story defined CNN last week and it can now go down as yet another dismal failure. I’ll explain why after the numbers:

Total Friday viewership at CNN averaged a paltry 254,000 viewers with only 70,000 in the 25-54 age group. Despite all the energy poured into CNN’s phony outrage over Nugent, this is actually down a little from last week. Zucker and his tribe didn’t make public fools of themselves for a full week in the hopes holding on to the dismal ratings from the prior week. The idea was to stoke an increase in ratings through ginned up national outrage.

In the 25-54 demo, here is how catastrophic Friday was for specific CNN programs:

New Day 77k
Wolf Blitzer 52k
Crossfire 25k-
Wolf Blitzer 49k
Erin Burnett 58k
Anderson Cooper 83k

Read more this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: CNNWatch: Ted Nugent Annoys CNN Host by Taking Credit for Getting Piers Morgan’s ‘A** Thrown Out’, Blasting Her Colleagues

By Jason Howerton.

Conservative rocker and NRA board member Ted Nugent took some credit for getting Piers Morgan’s CNN show cancelled during an interview with one of the network’s other anchors, Erin Burnett. His comments came after Burnett asked him if his apology for calling President Barack Obama a “sub-human mongrel” was sincere.

Nugent insisted his apology was serious and also defended himself against claims that his comments were racist in nature.

“We call bad people who are destroying our neighborhoods mongrels,” Nugent said, later adding, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body!”

Read more this story HERE.

Robert Redford Lays Into Republicans on CNN: They Want to Destroy Motives of President (+video)

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Photo Credit: NewsbustersLeftist actor-director Robert Redford laid into Republicans in a Sunday interview on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” Try not to notice this journalism show began with a Justin Bieber segment and included a Redford interview. Host Brian Stelter first asked how Redford felt about Obama. “I think he’s a good human being. That’s, I think, clear,” Redford replied. “He’s a humanitarian at heart, and that’s good. He’s trying to manage an extremely difficult situation. I mean, it’s — it’s almost too much for one person.”

He wouldn’t say the same for the GOP: “When you have one half whose only motive is to destroy the motives of the president of the United States, then you have a diseased system. And I don’t think that’s his fault. I think it just makes his job tougher.” Redford lamely claimed there was bipartisanship in getting to “truth” in Watergate: [See video after jump.]

REDFORD: We spoke a while back on “All the President’s Men Revisited.” There’s a moment in that film I’d like to point out that illustrates my point, which is remember the hearings, the Watergate hearings? And we have some archival footage in there where you had the panel, Sam Ervin, Sam Dash — you had all these guys, and you have the senator from Tennessee [Howard Baker], and he was conservative. He was a Republican.

You had Republicans and Democrats on this panel. And what you got out of it was how hard all of them were working together to get to the truth of something. And I thought, I’m seeing something we don’t see today, bipartisanship, working together to get to the truth for the public good.

Earth to Redford: In Watergate, can’t it look quite obviously like the Democrats and their media collaborators had the motive to “destroy the motives of the President of the United States”? The Republicans were cooperative in exposing what happened then. Do the Democrats look cooperative today on Obama scandals like the Benghazi fiasco or Fast & Furious? Are they interested in the “truth” when the Attorney General lies before Congress about his knowledge of Fast & Furious?

Read more from this story HERE.

CNN Chief Jeff Zucker: Fox News is Biased, Shills of GOP

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

CNN Chief Jeff Zucker might not be very good at getting ratings for his Nielsens-challenged network, but he’s great at hurling insults. On Friday, Zucker tried to diminish both the Republican Party and Fox News by alleging that the GOP is being run out of Fox.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was having none of it, firing back at Zucker to let him know that Fox News is not the GOP’s mouthpiece. “Hey Jeff Zucker, we’re the Republican Party and we speak for ourselves, pal,” Priebus tweeted. “Have a great weekend.”

At a Television Critics Association event on Friday, Zucker alleged that “the Republican Party is being run out of News Corp. headquarters masquerading as a cable news channel” without acknowledging that he runs a network that accused former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of being responsible for the attempted murder of Gabby Giffords without any evidence whatsoever. CNN has been repeatedly called out for its left-leaning biases that masquerade as “objective” news, which is why the network’s primetime ratings hit a 20-year low last year.

It’s an interesting strategy Zucker has: trash the Republican Party and, by extension, all Republicans.

Though Zucker tried to paint Fox as a network that shills for Republicans, Americans do not think so, as more Democrats and independents watch Fox News than CNN and MSNBC. In addition, though Americans once went en masse to CNN to get information about breaking news, that is not the case anymore. Fox News regularly outpaced CNN in ratings when breaking news or tragedies–like the Boston Marathon Bombing–consumed the news cycle last year.

Read more from this story HERE.

CNN Blames Christians for Obamacare Problems

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Photo Credit: Breitbart CNN has blamed Christians for the problem of Americans without health insurance, calling it “The Obamacare ‘scandal’ you haven’t heard about.” In an article on CNN.com’s Belief Blog, CNN writer John Blake says that, while famous pastors “preach in states where crosses and church steeples dot the skyline,” they do nothing about “the poor who can’t get the health insurance they would receive if they lived elsewhere.”

That refers, in turn, to the decision of twenty-five states not to participate in Obamacare’s expanded Medicaid funding. The states were allowed to opt out following last year’s controversial Supreme Court decision on Obamacare, which upheld the law as a whole but struck down the mandatory state participation in Medicaid expansion, citing the protection provided to state powers under the Tenth Amendment.

Some Republican states took the funding anyway, which provides health insurance subsidies for households with incomes up to 138% of the poverty level. Though the federal government will initially cover almost all of the cost, many Republican governors are wary of potential future costs, and are also worried about the effect on the federal budget itself. Many are also opposed to participating in the Obamacare program on principle.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama on CNN: Congress Has Two Jobs, But Too ‘Worried About’ Rush Limbaugh to Do Them (+video)

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Photo Credit: mediaite

Photo Credit: mediaite

In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Friday, President Barack Obama said that the upcoming fight over the continuation of a resolution which will fund the government does not have to be a fight at all. He said that enough Republicans in Congress agree that seeking to defund the Affordable Care Act is a bad idea, but they are afraid of angering their base or of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

“Congress doesn’t have a whole lot of core responsibilities,” Obama said. “One core responsibility is passing a budget, which they have not done yet. The other core responsibility that they’ve got is to pay the bills that they’ve already accrued.”…

He said that the notion that Republicans would shut down the government over the ACA is not good for the nation. He said the GOP sees this as “their last gasp.”

“I’ve made this argument to my Republican friends privately, and, by the way, sometimes they say to me privately, ‘I agree with you, but I’m worried about a primary from, you know, somebody in the tea party back in my district’ or, ‘I’m worried about what Rush Limbaugh is going to say about me on radio.”

Watch the clip below via CNN:

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GOP Votes to Bar CNN, NBC from Hosting Primary Debates

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priebus1BOSTON — The Republican National Committee voted Friday to bar NBC and CNN from sponsoring GOP primary debates in the 2016 election, ramping up pressure to stop the networks from running programs focused on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

RNC chairman Reince Priebus, who is trying to consolidate control over the primary process, said the networks’ programs were likely aid Mrs. Clinton, who is seen as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and he said that’s unfair to the GOP.

“It is the right thing to do for our voters,” Mr. Priebus said. “They are not going to get a real debate of substance if its run by a network who wants to help out Hillary Clinton. We are done with this nonsense, there are plenty of other good networks. CNN and NBC anchors will just have to watch on their competitors networks. The media overplayed their hand this time.”

The vote came on the third and final day of the RNC’s “Making it Happen” summer meeting, where the committee continued to pick up the pieces from the 2012 election and prepare for the 2014 and 2016 elections.

Mr. Priebus capped the event by pushing back against the notion that intra-party battles are tearing apart the GOP.

Read more from this story HERE.

RNC Threatens Boycott of CNN and NBC Over Hillary Clinton Shows

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThe Republican National Committee has threatened a boycott of CNN and NBC in the runup to the next presidential election unless the networks cancel films they have planned on Hillary Clinton.

Reince Priebus, chair of the RNC, wrote to the heads of CNN and NBC on Monday. He warned both networks that he would seek a binding committee vote next week to “neither partner with you in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor”, unless they cancel the Clinton shows.

Last week NBC announced plans for a four-hour mini-series on Clinton, with Diane Lane in the starring role. Two days later CNN revealed it had commissioned its films division to make a big-budget documentary on Clinton to air in 2014.

“I’m writing to express my deep disappointment in your company’s decision to air a miniseries promoting former Secretary Hillary Clinton ahead of her likely candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016,” Priebus wrote to NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt. The opening of his letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker substituted “miniseries” for “film” but was otherwise identical.

Priebus accused both networks of a “thinly-veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election”. The programming would be unfair to others who might compete for the Democratic nomination, he said, “and to the Republican nominee, should Clinton compete in the general election”.

Read more from this story HERE.

Larry King to Join RT News – Russia Today – Funded by Russian Government

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Photo Credit: Edward Headington

Long time talker Larry King, former CNN host and radio talk personality, is joining the lineup on Russia Today TV with his own politcal gab show as well as another show already launched on Hulu TV.

Award-winning interviewer Larry King will host a mold-breaking political talk show on RT from next month, speaking to both leading establishment figures, and those who are not afraid to go against the grain.

“I have always been passionate about government and issues that impact the public, and I’m thrilled at the opportunity to talk politics with some of the most influential people in Washington and around the country,” says King.

King’s career has spanned 56 years and more than 50,000 interviews, but he says the show will break new ground. The veteran broadcaster will not shy away from causing controversy, or using his authority to give a chance to hear voices other media ignore.

“I have interviewed every US president since Nixon, and lest people forget, I helped usher Ross Perot into the national conversation during the 1992 presidential contest. I appreciate the importance of providing a platform to those with real alternative visions for our country’s future,” says the host.

Read more from this story HERE.