CNN Politics's Twitter account on Friday pointed the finger at congressional Republicans over the now-former director of the Office of Personnel Management's responsibility for the massive hacking there that compromised the personal data of over 22 million people. A post hyped that "Republicans acknowledge to [correspondent] @evanperez they didn't properly vet [Katherine] Archuleta's qualifications."

This post will document what transpired at the Associated Press on Thursday before and just after the release of the government's employment report. It should be a humiliating lesson to its business and economics writers. One would hope that they might learn to concentrate solely on discerning and accurately reporting the relevant facts, and to leave the analysis to others. (I know; fat chance.)

As will be seen after the jump, several hours before that jobs report, the AP's Christopher Rugaber was all ready to pronounce the job market as "nearing full health," basing his bizarre assessment largely on "a surge in people looking for work" (reports referenced at this post have been saved at my host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes; bolds are mine throughout this post):

Regardless of one's stance on these issues, it should be obvious that if the legalization of same-sex "marriage" is a national story, the determination by the radical left and its government "civil rights" enforcers to brutally punish those who won't support it because it violates the religious beliefs of the "offenders" should also be.

The former dominated the news last week. But the Associated Press failed to give national treatment to the arguably most outrageous instance of the latter, the $135,000 fine levied against Aaron and Melissa Klein and their now-shuttered Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery in Oregon for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. The New York Times, perhaps not wishing to kill the positive buzz over the Supreme Court's ruling last week, has not published a story at all — even though it did cover an administrative judge's late-April finding that the couple violated Oregon's anti-discrimination laws.

All the attention given to the decidedly mixed employment report the government issued early Thursday morning and the ongoing debt drama in Greece overshadowed a very disappointing release on factory orders which arrived from the Census Bureau 90 minutes later.

In a cursory eight-paragraph report at the Associated Press, Martin Crutsinger relayed the basic bad news, but studiously avoided citing the kinds of statistics which might have gotten noticed on the cluttered news day. These items include but are certainly not limited to the fact that seasonally adjusted orders have declined in eight of the past ten months, that reported monthly shipments have been coming in below levels seen two years ago, and that reported monthly orders are trailing levels seen three years ago.

In a column at ForeignPolicy.com, a former Obama administration defense official who "served as a counselor to the U.S. defense undersecretary for policy from 2009 to 2011" has asked: "Can Gay Marriage Defeat the Islamic State?"

Rosa Brooks, who "is a law professor at Georgetown University," is serious. Her earnestness and deep ignorance are especially troubling, because it's clear that there are many people who "think" just like her who are still in the Obama administration and at the State Department (See: John Kerry's slow-motion sellout in Iranian negotiations).