As MSNBC's Chris Matthews appeared on Tuesday's Andrea Mitchell Reports to promote his special on Donald Trump's life, substitute MSNBC host Luke Russert wondered why the "divisions that had ravaged the country" did not go away after President Barack Obama's election because "everybody thought that we were now coming into a post-racial society, that 'hope and change' was going to carry the day."
A bit later, he brought up segregationist Alabama Democratic governor and former presidential candidate George Wallace as he wondered whether Trump was more like Wallace or Ross Perot.
Economy
By Brad Wilmouth | December 22, 2015 | 3:56 PM EST
By Tom Blumer | December 22, 2015 | 3:26 PM EST
Yesterday, CNBC's Krystina Gustafson opened her article about the state of the Christmas shopping season by reporting that "procrastinators around the U.S. provided a much-needed boost to retailers" last weekend, but that "the lift was likely too little too late to salvage a slow start to the holiday shopping season." The story's headline: "Retailers cut too deep to save the holiday season."
Readers who go to the link will not see that headline now. Instead, the headline, contradicting Gustafson's contention that it was probably already too late, now reads: "Can last-minute shoppers save the holiday season?" As seen after the jump, the original downbeat headline remains at Google (which lists original headlines, and as best I can tell doesn't change them if the linked story's headline changes) and Yahoo Finance:
By Sam Dorman | December 22, 2015 | 1:37 PM EST
According to feminist icon Gloria Steinem, America’s best bet for stimulating the economy isn’t tax cuts or trillions of dollars in spending, but equal pay for women.
In a Dec. 15 interview with Fusion, Steinem claimed that “Equal pay for women of all races would be the biggest economic stimulus the economy could possibly have.” She specifically said it would be “way better” than the last stimulus.
By Tom Blumer | December 22, 2015 | 12:57 PM EST
The business press worships at the altar of seasonally adjusted data. Most journalists covering the economy don't even bother looking at raw, not seasonally adjusted data, which in layman's terms is best understood as "what actually happened." As I have shown for nearly a decade, this is often a big mistake.
On the rare occasions when reporters take the initiative to look at the raw data, they usually ignor it, or fail to grasp its meaning. A perfect example of that phenomenon occurred today at Bloomberg News. The business press is blindly accepting a reported 10.5 percent drop in existing home sales as evidence of all kinds of problems, including — supposedly, but not really — a regulation-driven extension of closing time frames. Though Bloomberg's Victoria Stilwell was astute enough to look at the underlying data, unlike her fellow reporters at the Associated Press and Reuters, she completely ignored how doing so blew up the narrative.
New York Daily News Ridicules 'White Meatheads' Pushing Sam's Club Boycott, But Posts Critical Black Site-Based Video
By Tom Blumer | December 21, 2015 | 8:41 PM EST Rosalind Brewer is CEO of Sam's Club, the wholesale division of Walmart. Sam's claims that it is "committed to being the most valued membership organization in the world."
Brewer is apparently "committed" to a cause which has become quite a distraction from Sam's core commitment. Last week, she told CNN of a meeting she had with a supplier. Was she interested in getting the best prices and terms to save her members money and otherwise deliver "value"? Apparently not. Instead, she obsessed over the fact that the subject firm's executive team happened to consist exclusively of white men. On Wednesday, David Boroff at the New York Daily News called those who have objected to Brewer's dance on the edges of overt racism stupid white people, i.e., "white meatheads." The far-below-genius white guy here is actually NYDN home page editor Boroff himself. You see, the video posted at the paper's web site is from The Black Sphere, a site operated by Kevin Jackson, a definitely not-white guy.
By Julia A. Seymour | December 21, 2015 | 10:09 AM EST
Objective journalism is so old-fashioned. Activism is the new objectivity, at least where the liberal media are concerned.
Rather than reporting as neutral outsiders on matters of race, CNN hosts and guest actually put their hands up in the “Hands up, don’t shoot” pose that never happened while reporting on protests. They seize on mass shootings to repeat calls for stricter gun control.
The sad fact is that many journalists and news publications don’t report on climate change, health care, wages and other economic issues; they promote a liberal agenda with their so-called news. Here are the top 10 ways the media acted as anti-business or anti-capitalism activists in the past year.
By Tom Blumer | December 20, 2015 | 10:57 AM EST
What little remains of the economy's momentum appears to be riding on Christmas season consumer spending being perceived as strong. Unfortunately, it hasn't been.
Following up on her early Friday excuse-making for why things haven't gone too well at the malls so far — it's because the weather has just been too darned nice — Anne D'Innocenzio at the Associated Press worked over the available statistics to leave readers with the impression that it's not all that bad, and that there's plenty of time for a comeback. The linchpin of her effort is her claim that online sales continue to grow nicely. That's not so.
By Tom Blumer | December 18, 2015 | 11:25 PM EST
They have an excuse for everything, don't they?
This morning, Anne D'Innocenzio at the Associated Press actually told readers that this year's relatively warm Christmas season weather is what's hurting Christmas shopping season sales. It couldn't possibly be the "slowdown reality" USA Today cited in headlining Friday's second straight steep stock market drop, could it, Anne? Most other Americans participating in the real world have recognized the existence of a "slowdown reality" for at least the past few months.
By Tom Blumer | December 17, 2015 | 4:56 PM EST
For an understanding of just how weak the business press's understanding of economic fundamentals is, look no further than Paul Wiseman's brief "coverage" at the Associated Press Wednesday of the Federal Reserve's awful Industrial Production.
The Fed reported yesterday that industrial production fell by 0.6 percent in November on top of a revised -0.4 percent (down from -0.2 percent) in October. None of the three major industrial components turned in a positive November result (Manufacturing, flat; Mining, -1.1 percent; Utilities, -4.3 percent). Additionally, industrial production in the past 12 months has fallen by 1.2 percent, an occurrence which has historically been a recessionary red flag. But that's okay, Wiseman reassured readers, because "the American economy is relatively healthy thanks to solid consumer spending."
By Tom Blumer | December 16, 2015 | 11:51 PM EST
Reuters and reporter Lucia Mutikani went way overboard today in reacting to today's residential construction news from the Census Bureau.
Mutikani's headline contended that today's "housing data signals economic strength," while a section title claimed that there are "strong housing fundamentals." That can only possibly be true if one believes the world began in 2007.
Bloggers: Global-Warming Deniers Are Traitors to the Planet, Paris Deal ‘One of the Great Triumphs in History’
By Tom Johnson | December 15, 2015 | 4:55 PM EST When it comes to global warming, Esquire’s Charles Pierce implies, it’s now conservative Republicans and a few hidebound Democrats versus pretty much everyone and everything else, including the world’s non-human animals and its plant life. Meanwhile, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait opined that the Paris climate deal was “probably the [Obama] administration’s most important accomplishment."
By Tom Blumer | December 14, 2015 | 6:07 PM EST
One hesitates to give attention to Jesse A. Myerson. But it's probably worth it, if for no other reason to contend that many of his beliefs are likely shared by the mindless lemmings disguised as "journalists" who wildly cheered on Saturday when an obviously orchestrated "climate change" agreement designed ultimately to redistribute massive amounts of wealth from developed to underdeveloped countries — which would virtually guarantee that they will stay undeveloped — was announced in Paris.
Almost two years ago, Myerson, whose experience includes "the Media and Labor Outreach committees at Occupy Wall Street," identified of "Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For" in a Rolling Stone column. A week ago at The Nation, he vacuously attempted to elaborate on one of those five ideas, namely: "Let’s get rid of private housing."