Following Hillary Clinton’s latest flip-flop and move to the left in opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the CBS Evening News saw no interest in informing their viewers of this announcement after she strongly backed it while secretary of state in President Barack Obama’s first term. In contrast, both ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News surprisingly stepped up to the plate to cover this story with full stories along with the fact that both correspondents labeled Clinton’s decision a “flip-flop” from her time in the Obama administration.
Economy
By Tom Blumer | October 7, 2015 | 7:02 PM EDT
Over at the Associated Press, Andrew Taylor, contrary to the wire service's usual practice, referenced a pre-official Congressional Budget Office report to tout the federal government's "improved" budget deficit. The CBO estimates that the deficit, which won't become official until the Treasury Department releases its final Monthly Treasury Statement of the fiscal year in the next week or two, will come in at $435 billion.
Predictably, Taylor didn't disclose three facts he could easily have relayed in his brief report's available space, instead choosing to create artificial drama over deadlines which are three weeks and two months away, respectively:
By Curtis Houck | October 7, 2015 | 2:51 AM EDT
Promoting his new car show set to premiere Wednesday night on CNBC, Jay Leno made his return to NBC’s The Tonight Show on Tuesday night to give a portion of the opening monologue. He poked fun at Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Republicans, ObamaCare, and the economy to name a few targets.
By Jeffrey Meyer | October 4, 2015 | 11:35 AM EDT
On Sunday’s This Week, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos repeatedly hit GOP presidential frontrunner from the left over his tax plan, chastising Trump for his plan which Stephanopoulos claimed would mainly benefit the rich. Stephanopoulos demanded the Republican candidate explain why taxes should be cut at all and zeroed in on how the plan would personally benefit Trump: “Bottom line, you do accept that you're going to make out well under your tax plan?”
By Tom Blumer | October 4, 2015 | 11:11 AM EDT
Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro presides over a country which is falling apart thanks to the socialist policies of his government and that of his predecessor Hugo Chavez. The Economist describes the period since Chavez took over in 1998 as that of "authoritarian misrule" characterized by "by shortages of everything from poultry to pharmaceuticals, by inflation approaching 200% and by rampant corruption and crime."
It also cites the country's "dwindling cash reserves." Given the situation, the fact that a U.S.-based PR firm has recently and eagerly taken on the task of trying to make Maduro look good should be seen as appalling. But that hasn't been the case. The apparent silence of some of this PR firm's leftist clients arguably indicates that they tacitly support obvious oppression as long as the one engaging in it is a socialist. What little press coverage there has been of this firm's association with Maduro has been neutral to mildly laudatory.
By Tom Blumer | October 4, 2015 | 12:13 AM EDT
In their coverage of government and other economic reports, the business press routinely tells readers that the figures they are relaying are "seasonally adjusted." That is, raw results are smoothed out to supposedly "remove normal, recurring variations" in data.
There's one notable exception: The government's monthly employment report.
By Tom Blumer | October 2, 2015 | 11:59 PM EDT
Although it was very disappointing, the September Employment Situation Summary, which told us that the economy added only 142,000 seasonally adjusted jobs as hundreds of thousands of Americans withdrew from the labor force, was not the worst economy-related news of the day.
That dubious honor belongs to the Census Bureau's Factory Orders report. At least the employment report showed more people holding payroll jobs and overall August payroll employment 2 percent greater than a year ago. By contrast the Census report continued a nearly year-long pattern of declining year-over-year orders and shipments accompanied by still-bloated inventories. As anyone could have predicted, Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press completely ignored these alarming trends.
By Tom Johnson | October 1, 2015 | 10:36 PM EDT
Asked to name something that stands alone, a lot of people would say, “The cheese.” To New York magazine's Jonathan Chait, another reasonable answer is “the Republican party,” at least in regard to global warming specifically and hatred of government in general.
Chait’s main point is that the GOP is extremist not only in an American context but also by international standards: “Of all the major conservative parties in the democratic world, the Republican Party stands alone in its denial of the legitimacy of climate science…The fervent commitment to supply-side economics is also an almost uniquely American idea. The GOP is the only major democratic party in the world that opposes the principle of universal health insurance. The virulence of anti-government ideology in the United States has no parallel anywhere in the world.”
By Alatheia Larsen | October 1, 2015 | 4:28 PM EDT
A few Hillary supporters just learned an important lesson about paying attention to your candidate’s policies.
Following the announcement of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s tax plan, late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel set out to find whether voters paid any attention to details.
By Curtis Houck | September 30, 2015 | 1:58 AM EDT
Tuesday’s edition of the CBS Evening News used a liberal tax group, passed off as “non-partisan,” to bash, from the left, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s tax plan. Trumpeting the “non-partisan Tax Policy Center,” chief White House correspondent Major Garrett used multiple soundbites from senior fellow Howard Gleckman to hype that “an independent analysis says Trump's plan would cost the Treasury $10 trillion over 10 years and increase the nation's $18 trillion debt.”
By Tom Blumer | September 29, 2015 | 10:15 AM EDT
August's seasonally adjusted Pending Home Sales Index value contained in the related press release from the National Association of Realtors was the lowest in the past five months, and 2 percent below April's level.
Disclosing the size of the recent slump apparently wasn't considered important at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press. What was news at AP, whose Josh Boak essentially copied NAR's release and added standard boilerplate about job growth instead of engaging in informative journalism, is that the index is up by over 6 percent from a year ago, even though that increase ended several months ago.
By Mark Finkelstein | September 28, 2015 | 6:48 PM EDT
Wait a second: wasn't it just this month that Hillary's handlers announced they were going to have her show a warm 'n fuzzy side, with more "heart?" So who was the genius who coached Clinton to announce that as president she would "impose much harsher restrictions" on financial institutions under Dodd-Frank?
She'll "impose much harsher restrictions?" Brr! Isn't that the Stone Cold Hillary Clinton whose image was being re-engineered? Clinton made her "much harsher" comment in remarks aired on today's debut episode of MTP Daily in response to Chuck Todd's question as to where she differs from President Obama.