Government Agencies

AP Fails to Cite Work Requirement As a Reason for Maine's Food Stamp Enrollment Decline
By Tom Blumer | October 16, 2015 | 10:03 PM EDT

A week ago (late on a Friday afternoon, naturally), the Obama administration released food stamp enrollment figures for July. Despite millions of Americans finding work during the past several years, the data continued a national trend of little to no meaningful decline in enrollment.

Seasonally adjusted Household Survey employment is now 148.8 million, slightly above its prerecession November 2007 peak of 146.6 million. Meanwhile, current food stamp enrollment, at 45.5 million, is far greater than the 2007 average of 26.2 million. There is a small exception to this disturbing situation. It's in Maine, where enrollment has declined by over 20 percent since 2009. Those wondering why didn't find anything resembling a complete answer in a brief Associated Press report Tuesday (presented in full because of its brevity and for fair use and discussion purposes):

As Rush Limbaugh Routinely Demonstrates: The Media’s Lockstep Leftist Talking Points
By Seton Motley | October 13, 2015 | 8:42 AM EDT

We’ve time and again seen the media receive their messaging orders  - and then march off all mouthing the Leftist talking point(s) of the day.  Washington, D.C.-based talk radio host Chris Plante quotes a military friend of his describing the media not as a gaggle, but as a centipede.  Multitudinous legs in coordinated movement - all headed in the same direction. 

Talk radio impresario Rush Limbaugh has long made audio cavalcades of this media mal-practice a routine feature of his show.  He strings together “media montages” - innumerable examples of “reporters” magically all arriving at the exact same Leftist term(s) to describe the news of the day.  

GQ Columnist: F*ck Ben Carson
By Tom Blumer | October 9, 2015 | 10:43 AM EDT

Drew Magary is a regular columnist at GQ.com.

Apparently Magary, his editors and the publication's management have forgotten or don't care about what the "G" in GQ is supposed to stand for. Both the headline and the content of the writer's latest column flunk the "gentlemen's" test.

Will Press Cover State Dept. Envoy Declaring Russia's Bombing Shows Obama's Syria Policy Is Working?
By Tom Blumer | October 8, 2015 | 5:15 PM EDT

It seems more than fair to say that establishment press coverage of the deteriorating situation in Syria has been much lighter than what we'd see if a Republican or conservatives was in the Oval Office. Additionally, what has been reported in the admittedly complicated situation has been confusing at best and misleading at worst.

There was a moment of disconcerting clarity today which, if reported, should disturb even those Americans who only have a vague understanding of what's going on in that country. As reported by Tim Mak and Nancy A. Youssef at The Daily Beast:

AP's Taylor Touts 'Improved' Fiscal 2015 Deficit, Ignores Record Taxes, Spending
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:

Press Ignoring Unsettling News For Global Warming's True Believers
By Tom Blumer | October 7, 2015 | 10:25 AM EDT

On Saturday, conservative Australian columnist Miranda Devine revealed that an Australian engineer claims to have "fixed two errors" in "the basic climate model which underpins all climate science."

The person making this claim was a "climate modeller for the Government’s Australian Greenhouse Office," and has "six degrees in applied mathematics." What he found is that "the new corrected model finds the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) is much lower than was thought." While some U.S. blogs have begun to relay the news (examples here, here and here), the nation's establishment press is ignoring it.

Press Ignoring Blatant Conflicts of Interest Exposed in CBS Benghazi Coverage
By Tom Blumer | September 30, 2015 | 11:59 PM EDT

Apparently, the establishment press is waiting for its marching orders on how to handle what an Investor's Business Daily editorial has already called a "scandal."

This one's a joint effort involving Hillary Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, a recently deceased former CIA operative named Tyler Drumheller who worked with Blumenthal — and CBS News. As Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard reported Tuesday afternoon (i.e., now approaching two overnight news cycles ago), "Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s clandestine service in Europe who was working directly with Blumenthal as a member of Clinton’s spy network, was concurrently working as a consultant to CBS News and its venerable news program 60 Minutes." IBD's question, reacting to Hemingway's report: "Who is more corrupt, Clinton or the mainstream media?"

An Investor's Business Daily Editorial Does the Beat Press's Job With a Digest of Hillary Scandal News
By Tom Blumer | September 28, 2015 | 5:32 PM EDT

If the establishment press was treating Hillary Clinton's private server/email and other controversies as the genuine scandals and the national security nightmares that they really are, we'd be getting daily or near-daily updates on the latest developments.

It really isn't too much to ask. After all, outlets like the Associated Press frequently capsulized the latest Watergate developments during 1973 and 1974. It is fortunate, since the AP and others traditional hard-news outlets won't do their jobs, that an Investor's Business Daily editorial presented a readily understandable Hillary scandal summary on Wednesday.

AP's Reported 'Fastest Pace' in Home Sales in Seven Years Really Isn't
By Tom Blumer | September 25, 2015 | 10:56 AM EDT

Thursday morning at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Christopher Rugaber opened his coverage of the Census Bureau's New Residential Sales report as follows: "Buoyed by steady job gains and low mortgage rates, Americans purchased new homes in August at the fastest pace in more than seven years."

Sorry, pal, it was the "fastest pace" in — wow — three months. The bureau's not seasonally adjusted home sales table told us that:

Veteran AP Reporter Promotes Absurd 'Laissez Faire Regulation' Myth
By Tom Blumer | September 24, 2015 | 1:48 AM EDT

The competition for the most annoying aspect of establishment press business reporting is fierce. One which immediately identifies a reporter as hopelessly biased and ignorant is any reference to "laissez faire" as a condition allegedly present in any modern economy anywhere on earth.

"Laissez faire" is an economic concept involving "an economic system in which transactions between private parties are free from government interference such as regulations, privileges, tariffs, and subsidies." There are no true "laissez faire" economies of any meaningful size, because they are all regulated to some extent. As we will see shortly, some in the press even employ the obviously absurd term "laissez faire regulation."

Cleanup at AP: Wire's Report on Indicted Pa. AG Has Vague Headline, Late Party Tag
By Tom Blumer | September 22, 2015 | 10:41 PM EDT

The Associated Press's report yesterday on the law license suspension of indicted Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, a Democrat, apparently bore too much resemblance to how the wire service typically reports on troubled Republicans and conservatives. The Monday afternoon report by Marc Levy and Mark Scolforo identified her position in its headline ("Court suspends Pennsylvania attorney general's law license"), named her in its opening sentence, and tagged her as a "first-term Democrat" in its second.

As will be seen after the jump, today's AP report on how Kane's office is trying to cope with not having someone allowed to practice law at the helm reverted to predictable form: running an incredibly vague and almost incoherent headline, saving Kane's name for Paragraph 2, and holding the identification of her Democratic Party affiliation until Paragraph 9 (even then, referring only to a "fellow Democrat").

AP's Boak: With the Economy So Good, Why Won't Fed Raise Rates?
By Tom Blumer | September 19, 2015 | 10:51 PM EDT

The business press just can't understand why the Federal Reserve decided not to raise interest rates on Thursday. After all, these alleged journalists have been telling us for months bordering on years that U.S. economy is really in good shape. So it should be able to handle a rate hike, especially after over seven years of rates at essentially zero. The problem is that they now believe their own bogus blather. The U.S. economy is not in good shape, and data seen during the past several weeks show that the situation is deteriorating, not improving.

Excerpts from an early Friday report at the Associated Press by Josh Boak illustrate how out of touch the business press really is (bolds and numbered tags are mine):