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Al Gore has taken some heat lately for spreading the word about global warming. First there were the allegations by a conservative group, the day after Gore collected an Oscar for his movie "An Inconvenient Truth," that his Nashville mansion consumes more than 20 times as much electricity as the average American household. Then there were charges that zinc mining on Tennessee property owned by Gore tarnished his environmentalist credentials. By the time he arrived on Capitol Hill this past week to testify about his signature issue, the barbs Gore's congressional adversaries hurled at him sounded relatively benign. "It seems...

For the MSM, there's nothing like the occasion of a natural disaster to challenge the faith of religious believers. On today's Good Morning America, Kate Snow interviewed the Rev. Larry Lynn, Pastor of the Lady Lake Church of God, whose buildings were totally levelled by the tornadoes that recently struck central Florida. A minute or so into the interview, Snow asked a question that challenged the core of the pastor's religious belief: "How do you reconcile your faith with the enormity of this tragedy?" Pastor Lynn answered in a manner consistent with the most basic Christian principles: "This is just...

FREEP AWAY! http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Rewind2006/popup?id=2740840

The year 2006 was a fascinating one, and Barbara Walters is looking back at the people who influenced, inspired, entertained and surprised us over the past 12 months. The list includes some of the year's most prominent names in entertainment, politics, sports and business. Andre Agassi: A Good Sport When it comes to sports, we tend to focus on the winners. But on Sept. 3 at the U.S. Open, the most fascinating person on the court was Andre Agassi, the one who lost. It was perhaps the year's most memorable moment in sports: a four-minute standing ovation -- unprompted, unexpected...

In London, sex scandals come along every other week. You name it, British parliamentarians do it: three-in-a-bed, auto-erotic asphyxiation, gay teen flagellation, getting your toes sucked while wearing the soccer kit of Chelsea Football Club. But at least at Westminster, sex scandals require actual sex. That the governing party of the world's only superpower could be felled by one creepy pervert's masturbatory e-mails and IMs is an event historians will marvel at. Granted that the Roman Empire in its death throes got hung up on gay sex, the American hyperpower seems set to be the first to collapse over gay...

As time passes, it is increasingly clear that the ABC News report which started the Foley firestorm is odorous—and I’m not talking Chanel. (1) It dealt with the emails which the FBI and many media organizations considered as innocuous as the Republican leadership did. Who circulated these reports is not yet clear.Foley’s spokesman said his opponent, Mahoney had been shopping the story to the media for some time....(much more)

A posting of an unredacted instant message sessions between Rep. Mark Foley and a former congressional page has apparently exposed the identity of the now 21 year-old accuser... ABC RELEASED TRANSCRIPT OF ONE CHAT BETWEEN FOLEY AND A MAN WHO WAS 18 AT THE TIME OF THE INSTANT MESSAGE EXCHANGE.... NETWORK STATED THE MESSAGE WAS TO 'UNDER AGE' TEEN... DEVELOPING... ABC ONLINE GLITCH LEADS TO IDENTITY OF FOLEY ACCUSER; FEATURED IM EXCHANGE WAS WITH 18 YEAR OLD

Aug. 7, 2006 — - Last week President Bush underwent his annual physical. It revealed he was in pretty good health, except for one thing. According to his body mass index, he's overweight. His BMI was 26, putting him in the lower range of the overweight category. He weighs 196 pounds, meaning he has gained 5 pounds since last year and his percentage of body fat has increased to 16.8 percent, which is, overall, pretty good for a man who just turned 60. (To calculate your BMI, go here). Still, the appropriate body weight range is 157 to 192 pounds...

As President George W. Bush joined the last daily press briefing in the White House press room, which will undergo a nine-month renovation, Bush took a moment to take some questions. At that time, a reporter shouted: "Mr. President, should Mel Gibson be forgiven?" The president laughed and looked into the audience to see who shouted the remark: "Sam Donaldson, is that you? I don't have to talk to you anymore, you're a has been." First, there was laughter, then silence. But, in the end, Bush did not respond to the former ABC News anchor's question. The president and first...

The wigs and faces have come off on morning television -- and the nails are out! It isn't pretty. Barbara Walters coldly ripped into outgoing VIEW talker Star Jones this morning on ABC-TV. Walters announced that Star would no longer be permitted to appear on the show -- effective immediately -- after Star strayed from script during an exit that's turned ugly. Transcipt: WALTERS: "And then there were three. This is, truthfully, a very difficult day for us, and it is a sad day for us. If you were watching the program yesterday, you would have heard Star announce that...

Comedienne Sandra Bernhard appeared on the show and, amidst a discussion about Laura Bush, characterized the First Lady, with her typical acidity as "heavily medicated." Co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck, a vocally ardent Republican, took acute exception and tried to defend Mrs. Bush's work on childhood education, whereupon Bernhard called Hasselbeck "honey" – and then the sparks really flew. It was all a bit too much for Joy Behar to bear, apparently.

Good Morning America weekend producer John Green has been suspended by ABC News for one month without pay following the release of years-old emails that he sent in which he remarked that President Bush "makes me sick" and that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright "has Jew shame." After the emails were posted on the Drudge Report, Green promptly apologized, saying in a message to ABC News staff, "I want all of you to know how much I regret the embarrassment this story causes ABC. It was an inappropriate thing to say and I'm deeply sorry." The Washington Post reported...

The FBI translator who supplied the 12-hours of Saddam Hussein audiotapes excerpted by ABC's "Nightline" Wednesday night now says the network discarded his translations and went with a less threatening version of the Iraqi dictator's comments. "What you heard on ABC News was their translation," former U.N. weapons inspector Bill Tierney told ABC Radio's Sean Hannity on Thursday. "They came up with something different on a key element regarding terrorism in the United States," Tierney insisted. In the "Nightline" version of a 1996 recording, Saddam predicts that Washington, D.C. would be hit by terrorists. But he adds that Iraq would...

ABC news has obtained 12 hours of tape recordings of Saddam Hussein meeting with top aides during the 1990's, apparently recorded in the Baghdad version of the Oval Office. The tapes were provided to ABC News by Bill Tierney, a former member of an UN inspection team who was translating them for the FBI. He says the U.S. Government is wrong to keep these tapes and others secret from the public. "Because of my experience being in the inspections and being in the military, I know the significance of these tapes when I heard them" said Tierney. U.S. officials confirm...

While CBS News coverage of the State of the Union speech showcased the bombast of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, the ABC News coverage was the most hostile to Bush and conservative policies with its analysis delivered through a liberal prism. Anchor Elizabeth Vargas began the evening by emphasizing Bush's low approval rating fueled by "an inept response to Hurricane Katrina, and the indictment of a high ranking White House official and, of course, growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq." She resurrected Watergate as she highlighted how Bush's 42 percent approval level "is the worst for a President...

Check out the promotional ad for this Thursday evening's (December 29, 2005) episode of ABC's Primetime. The promo is for the story, "On the Trail of Pope Joan" (audiotape on file; emphasis mine): "Diane Sawyer takes you on the trail of a passionate mystery. Just as intriguing as The Da Vinci Code. Chasing down centuries-old clues hidden even inside the Vatican. Could a woman disguised as a man have been Pope? Thursday night. One astonishing Primetime." It doesn't get much uglier than this, folks. Quite simply, there was never a female pope, or "Pope Joan." The tale is a complete...

It is fitting in more ways than one that Ted Koppel devotes the final program in his 26-year reign on ABC's "Nightline" to the charming sociology professor who died from Lou Gehrig's disease and inspired Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays with Morrie." The three 1995 "Nightline" shows in which Koppel talked with Morrie Schwartz about living life and coping with death were among the most memorable of his 6,500 programs. Additionally, his last show, which airs at 11:35 tonight on Channel 7, will show "Nightline" fans what they will be missing with Koppel's departure: The time to devote to one captivating story...

"Nurse Nasty," "Wicked Doctor," "The Prison Matron" … not the usual way to introduce yourself, but in the leather-clad world of sadomasochism, naughty is nice. And pain is pleasure. "I need stimulation and get a terrific high from playing rough," said Allena Gabosch, 52, a Seattle-based "bottom," meaning she's the one on the receiving end of spanking. The buxom, tattooed, alternative sex activist finds pain play very seductive but, "I still ask for Novocain at the dentist's office." While most couples don't need whips, paddles or ropes to get in the mood, a minority find sadomasochism, or S&M, erotic. They...

President Bush has proven to be one of the more adept and agile politicians of the modern era. Time and again, he and his political team have shown the ability to turn potential political vulnerabilities — think 9/11 — into weapons deftly applied to opponents. Democrats would do well to remember that as they gloat over two of the larger political stories out here — the fight over Social Security reform and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's ethics controversies. Friday in Falls Church, Va., the president not only condemned opponents — presumably Democrats — for fighting his Social Security proposal,...

Anyone who saw Nightline tonight saw the power of the liberal media to completely hide facts and spoon feed a message to the American people straight from the DNC. Tonight's Nightline was a 30 minute John Kerry campaign commercial.It was mentioned that John Kerry became a "peace activist" after the war, and we heard Karen Hughes in a 5 second clip saying that Kerry accused his fellow soldiers of horrendous acts. We were never shown what Kerry said about the soldiers.We were told there was some controversy about John Kerry throwing medals, but not told what the controversy was. Instead,...

"Here in the UK no one gets upset, but over there, where the President is fighting these military campaigns in the name of democracy, the first casualty seems to be freedom of speech, the cornerstone of any democracy." - BUFFALO SOLDIERS Director Gregor Jordan The WALT DISNEY CO. is set for maximum controversy when it releases a "warts-and-all" portrait of U.S. Army life with the fuss-film BUFFALO SOLDIERS. As American men and women put their lives on the line in Iraq and other locations throughout the world, DISNEY and its subsidiary MIRAMAX have set a July 25 opening for the...

June 30, 2003 A Test Story Morphs Into a Heady RumorBy JIM RUTENBERG he week before last, a rumor swept Washington that Ronald Reagan had died. The story first wound its way through Republican circles, then moved on to the State Department, and finally reached House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office. The source of the report was ABC News. But the staff of ABC News never actually thought Mr. Reagan was dead. Rather, it seems, the word spread as the staff took part in one of the division's now common breaking-news drills, which news executives concocted to make sure the...

Don't count on seeing Barbara Walters raising with Senator Hillary Clinton any subject which the former First Lady would like to avoid. Though an ABC promo spot for ABC's June 8 special dedicated to publicizing Clinton's new book promises that "nothing's off limits" and on Thursday's The View Walters reported that when she sits down with Mrs. Clinton next week she'll "ask the really tough questions," the instant The View's Joy Behar mentioned Monica Lewinsky, an annoyed Walter raised her hands and made a pained facial expression as she demanded: "Oh, let's drop, let's move on!" As quoted in the...

By Elma Barrera ABC13 Eyewitness News (3/14/03) — Talk of war with Iraq has sparked an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. And it may be to blame for a brawl that broke out at the rodeo Thursday night. ABC-13 report With some 15,000 to 20,000 folks at the rodeo drinking beer and having fun, things can get a little out of hand at times. It happened when a tape of Lee Greenwood's song Proud To Be An American was playing. Some rodeo fans were standing and others were sitting down. Felix Fanaselle and his buddies chose to remain seated. "This...