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Fox Reporter Won’t Name Sources in Aurora Shooting Story; Faces Jail

Photo Credit: The New American

Fox News reporter Jana Winter is so committed to keeping secret the identity of her sources of information in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shootings that she is willing to face jail time rather than expose the unnamed persons. Though both a Colorado judge and a New York judge have ordered her to turn over her notes related to the killings — that likely contain the names of her law-enforcement sources — Winter has so far refused.

On July 20, 2012, James Holmes opened fire on unsuspecting patrons in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 and injuring 70. Fox News sent Jana Winter to cover the aftermath. Just five days later, Winter broke her exclusive story that Holmes had forwarded a notebook to a University of Colorado psychiatrist “filled with details about how he was going to kill people.” Her story was based on information she had received from law-enforcement sources who were not to discuss the case because of a gag order issued by County Judge William Sylvester.

Forbes reported,

As one might expect, the defense attorneys were not happy with the revelation, claiming that the failure of the unnamed sources to honor the gag order — and Winter’s reporting of what she had learned — violated Holmes’ right to receive a fair trial.

The defense team began an investigation into the violation of the gag order, and called a number of law-enforcement officers to the stand, all of whom denied having leaked the information. It was at that point that the defense team persuaded Colorado Judge Sylvester to issue an order forcing Winter to turn over her notes on the story. But because Winter lives in New York, she could not be forced to comply with the order.

Manhattan Judge Larry Stephen then stepped in to offer his assistance and signed off on a subpoena requiring Winter to turn over all her materials associated with the Holmes case, as per the Colorado judge’s order.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Ann Coulter to Libertarians – ‘This Is Why People Think You Are ‘Pu**ies’

Photo Credit: The BlazeConservative talker Ann Coulter appeared Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “Stossel” to do battle with the show’s Libertarian host — and his 1,400+ Libertarian guests.

Their biggest point of contention? Social Conservatism versus the Libertarian “Individuals Should Be Left Alone” approach.

The evening began pleasantly enough, the two discussing whether the U.S. should’ve invaded Iraq following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Coulter believes military action was justified because Saddam Hussein was “definitely looking for uranium from Niger.”

But then things became a little more heated when Stossel decided to shift gears and brought up legalizing drugs.

“Libertarians and pot,” Coulter laughed. “This is why people think libertarians are pu**ies.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Professor Bans Fox News, Claiming It Makes Her Cringe

Back in the day, teachers often scoffed at using encyclopedias as serious academic references. These days, they reserve their scorn for Wikipedia and — at one public university in West Virginia — Fox News.

A syllabus for a political science course at West Liberty University instructs students that they must filter out two potential research sources, reports WTOV, a nearby NBC affiliate.

According to Fox News, ironically enough, the syllabus says (with grammatical errors preserved for posterity):

DO NOT use

1) The Onion — this is not news this is literally a parody

2) Fox News — The tagline “Fox News” makes me cringe. Please do not subject me to this biased news station. I would almost rather you print off an article from the Onion

No other media or research sources — such as, say, MSNBC — appear to be prohibited.

Stephanie Wolfe, the visiting assistant professor behind the ban, has a one-year contract with the university in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle. She is replacing another instructor who is on leave.

Read more from this story HERE.

State of The Union Viewership Drops 11% From 2012

Photo Credit: deadline.comUPDATE, 3:10 PM: The first State of the Union of President Obama’s second term last night was watched by 33.5 million viewers. That’s down 11.3% from the 37.75 million who tuned in for last year’s address across 14 broadcast and cable networks. It’s also a State of the Union low for Obama, who has seen a decline every year since his first official SOTU in 2010 was watched by 48 million.

It is not an all-time low since Nielsen started tracking SOTUs in 1993; that goes to Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union when the he was in the last year of his administration — that speech got just 31.478 million. This year’s speech was live from around 9-10:15 PM ET on 15 networks and tape-delayed on Univision. NBC was tops among broadcast networks with 6.469 million total viewers, just ahead of the 6.4 million CBS pulled in.

With 3.683 million watching, Fox News Channel was No. 1 among cable news’ coverage of last night’s speech. However, CNN won in the key adults 25-54 demographic with 1.436 million. Fox News’ total viewership dipped 3% from last year. Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Azteca, Univision, MundoFox, CNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Current, Centric and Galavision all carried the speech live last night.

Read more from this story HERE.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown Signs On With Fox News

Photo Credit: Daily CallerThe Fox News Channel confirmed Wednesday that it would be enlisting former Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown as an on-air contributor.

“Sen. Brown’s dedication to out-of-the box thinking on key issues makes him an important voice in the country and we are looking forward to his contributions across all Fox News platforms,” Bill Shine, Executive Vice President of Programming for Fox News, said.

Brown, known for defeating Democratic Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley to fill the seat held by long-time Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2010, declined to make another run at the Senate seat vacated by recently confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this month.

Read more from this story HERE.

The GOP, Fox Political Purge (+video)

Photo Credit: Mike LichtRepublicans and Fox News are moving to purge the controversial political creatures they created.
Both were damaged badly in 2012 by loud, partisan voices that stoked the base — but that scared the hell out of many voters.

Now, the GOP, with its dismal image, and Fox News, with its depressed ratings in January, are scrambling to dim those voices. To wit:

Fox ousted contributors Sarah Palin and Dick Morris, two of the most obnoxiously partisan figures on the network’s air.
Karl Rove, himself sidelined by Fox after the election, has helped start a new super PAC, the Conservative Victory Fund, designed to keep controversial conservatives like Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) from winning Senate primaries.

Senate GOP leaders created what amounts to a buddy system with their caucus’s most popular tea party members, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, to get their help in taming anti-establishment conservatives.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been running around the country warning anyone who will listen that Republicans must quit being the “stupid party” that nominates nutty candidates.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Threatens Fox News, Rush Limbaugh

In a sycophantic interview with The New Republic, conducted by former campaign staffer Chris Hughes and leftist writer Franklin Foer, President Obama suggested that he had all the answers to the pressing issues facing America and therefore no compromise was necessary with Republicans. He added that Republicans should compromise. And if those Republicans don’t compromise, Obama suggested that the fault would lie at the feet of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh – and that the calculus had to be changed to force Fox News and Limbaugh to stop holding Republicans accountable to conservatism.

Here’s Obama on how he’s going to fix the country:

“The truth is that most of the big issues that are going to make a difference in the life of this country for the next thirty or forty years are complicated and require tough decisions, but are not rocket science. We know that to fix our economy, we’ve got to make sure: that we have the most competitive workforce in the world, that we have a better education system, that we are investing in research and development, that we’ve got world-class infrastructure, that we’re reducing our health care costs, and that we’re expanding our exports. On issues like immigration, we have a pretty good sense of what’s broken in the system and how to fix it. On climate change, it’s a daunting task. But we know what releases carbon into the atmosphere, and we have tools right now that would start scaling that back, although we’d still need some big technological breakthrough. So the question is not, Do we have policies that might work? It is, Can we mobilize the political will to act?”

Despite the fact that Obama’s policies have been abysmal failures on virtually every front, the question for Obama is not what to do, but how to swindle the American people into doing it. And Obama said he would not be focusing on how to get things done in Washington, D.C.; instead, he’d be attempting to drum up public support on every issue. Obama then compared himself to Lincoln for such tactics:

“I always read a lot of Lincoln, and I’m reminded of his adage that, with public opinion, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish; without it, you’re not going to get very far. And spending a lot more time in terms of being in a conversation with the American people as opposed to just playing an insider game here in Washington is an example of the kinds of change in orientation that I think we’ve undergone, not just me personally, but the entire White House.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Two-Thirds of U.S. Weapons Owners Would ‘Defy’ Federal Gun Ban

photo credit: anthony.carusoAn interesting little factoid has emerged from a new Fox News poll of U.S. voters: Personal sentiments are strong and defiant among many U.S. gun owners.

Question 46 in the wide-ranging survey of more than 1,000 registered voters asks if there is a gun in the household. Overall, 52 percent of the respondents said yes, someone in their home owned a gun . . .

But on to Question 47, addressed to those with a gun in their home: “If the government passed a law to take your guns, would you give up your guns or defy the law and keep your guns?”

The response: 65 percent reported they would “defy the law.”

Read full story HERE.

Palin, Fox News Part Ways

NEW YORK – Fox News Channel is parting ways with former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, ending her three-year tenure as a contributor on the network.

While Palin’s time at Fox was occasionally rocky, the network’s news executive, Bill Shine, said Friday that “we have thoroughly enjoyed our association” with her.

“We wish her the best in her future endeavors,” said Shine, Fox’s executive vice president for programming.

A person familiar with discussions between Fox and Palin described the parting as amicable, saying that Fox and Palin had discussed renewing her contract but she decided to do other things. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

Palin’s lawyer in Alaska, John Tiemessen, had no immediate comment on her exit. Palin’s last appearance on Fox News was Dec. 19 on Greta Van Susteren’s show.

Read more from this story HERE.

Famous Fox News Faces ‘Get Dumped Off Air’

If you’re used to watching Fox News, you may notice a lot less face time by political analysts Karl Rove and Dick Morris.

New York Magazine is reporting the top-rated cable-news network is doing some “post-election soul searching,” and Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, is changing the characters who appear as talking heads on the air.

“According to multiple Fox sources, Ailes has issued a new directive to his staff,” reports Gabriel Sherman of New York Magazine. “He wants the faces associated with the election off the air – for now. For Karl Rove and Dick Morris – a pair of pundits perhaps most closely aligned with Fox’s anti-Obama campaign – Ailes’s orders mean new rules.”

Among the reported new rules is a mandate from Fox News programming chief Bill Shine that producers receive permission before booking Rove or Morris for an appearance.

Both pundits were on the air in the immediate aftermath of last month’s election, “but their visibility on the network has dropped markedly,” wrote Sherman.

Read more from this story HERE.