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AP Headlines Oct. Consumer Spending As 'Weak'; Crutsinger Opens by Claiming a 'Modest Increase'
By Tom Blumer | November 27, 2015 | 12:49 PM EST

Economic news on Wednesday's pre-Thanksgiving "Getaway Day" was largely dismal. The government's report on October's personal income and outlays headed up the disappointing news. While incomes increased nicely — at a rate which needs to be repeated about two dozen more times before it can be seen as genuinely impressive — spending only rose by 0.1 percent, while prior months were revised significantly downward.

Perhaps because they were all in a pre-holiday hurry, the headline writers at the Associated Press and AP economics writer Martin Crutsinger had fundamentally different takes on the news. Additionally, Crutsinger was apparently in such a rush that he didn't worry about the fact that his first two paragraphs' characterizations of the result disagreed. Finally, the AP reporter failed to note that total consumer spending in October was lower than what was originally reported in September after the previously mentioned downard revisions.

WashPost Columnist: ESPN’s Kornheiser ‘Should Probably Have’ Been Suspended for Linking GOP to ISIS
By Curtis Houck | November 26, 2015 | 2:17 PM EST

Promoting his latest book Wednesday night on Newsmax TV, longtime sports writer and Washington Post columnist John Feinstein surprisingly went off the liberal reservation and told host Steve Malzberg that ESPN Radio 980 personality and Pardon the Interruption co-host Tony Kornheiser “should probably have gotten” suspended for comparing conservative Republicans to ISIS back.

CBS: Syrian Refugees Face ‘Another Brewing Problem’ with GOP Opponents After Fleeing War
By Curtis Houck | November 25, 2015 | 7:47 AM EST

Following in the footsteps of Monday’s CBS This Morning, the CBS Evening News featured on Tuesday a segment sounding the alarm on opposition to the U.S. accepting Syrian refugees with the comparison that those Syrians who have settled in the U.S. are facing “another brewing problem” in those opposed to their settlement (after having survived the horrors of the Assad regime). 

Percentage of Late-Nov. Media Mentions of 'Christmas Shopping Season' at a 10-Year Low
By Tom Blumer | November 24, 2015 | 11:31 PM EST

As we head into the Christmas shopping season, yours truly regrets to inform readers that the relative frequency of late-November media mentions of the "Christmas shopping season" is at the lowest level in all of the years I have been tracking it — probably meaning that it's at an all-time low, period.

This is Year 11 of an effort which began in 2005. Each year has involved Google News searches on "Christmas shopping season" and "holiday shopping season" (both terms in quotes). In the past few years, after Google News merged its archive with its regular one-month news results, I've made sure to only search on the past month. As seen in the graph which follows, this year's result is down to one "Christmas" mention for every 16.5 "holiday" mentions:

'Victim' of 'Islamophobia' Three Years Ago Arrested in Turkey as Part of ISIS Cell
By Tom Blumer | November 24, 2015 | 9:49 PM EST

There are plenty of problems with the government's "no-fly list," and especially the plans by some congressmen and senators to abuse it. That said, it appears, almost three years later, to have gotten one name right.

In late 2012 and early 2013, leftists like Chris Hayes at MSNBC, Glenn Greenwald and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones were upset that Saadiq Long, a U.S. Air Force veteran who was living in Qatar, had been put on the no-fly list. After making a stink, Long's name was apparently removed so he could fly into Oklahoma to see his ailing mother, only to see his no-fly listing reinstated so he couldn't leave. He returned to Qatar, but only after taking a bus down to Mexico City and flying from there. End of story? Hardly, as PJ Media's Patrick Poole reports:

Reuters: 2.1 Percent GDP Growth Is 'Respectable'; 2 Percent Is Economy's 'Long-Run Potential'
By Tom Blumer | November 24, 2015 | 6:32 PM EST

Call it the triumph of the "new normal."

At Reuters today, after today's first revision of third-quarter gross domestic product showed that the economy grew by an annualized 2.1 percent, up from the late-October estimate of 1.5 percent, reporter Lucia Mutikani and Editor Paul Simao demonstrated that they have completely given in to the artificially lowered expectations of past seven miserable years. Despite the fact that annual growth in the U.S. economy averaged 3.4 percent from 1946-2007 — a period which included ten recessions — and that it has seen four-year spurts averaging over 4 percent several times in the past three decades, the Reuters pair claims that its "long-run potential" is now only 2 percent, thus making today's 2.1 percent result "respectable."

On CNN, The Blaze's Sexton Schools Liberal Marc Lamont Hill on Islam
By Matthew Balan | November 24, 2015 | 6:08 PM EST

On Monday's CNN Tonight, Buck Sexton of The Blaze exposed the left's special treatment of the Islamic faith, after liberal commentator Marc Lamont Hill attacked Bill Maher for his views on Islam. Hill claimed that "Islam is premised on some very basic fundamental values that are in line with what America articulates as its own value." Sexton countered by underlining that a "large portion" of Muslims subscribe to "ideas that, under normal circumstances, would be considered bigoted by American liberals."

AP's Boak: Consumer Confidence Drop Occurred Despite 'Strengthened' Economy
By Tom Blumer | November 24, 2015 | 3:09 PM EST

There was yet another sighting of the U-word ("unexpectedly") in connection with disappointing economic news today.

Bloomberg News, which most frequently employs the word, told readers that "Consumer confidence unexpectedly declined in November to the lowest level in more than a year as Americans grew less enthusiastic about the labor-market outlook." Expectations were that confidence would increase from October's value of 99.1 to between 99.6 and 101.0, not drop like a rock in just one month by almost 9 percent to 90.4. Over at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Economics writer Josh Boak clearly wanted his readers to believe that the news was a one-off "curveball" in an economy which he contended "has strengthened by many measures over the past month." All one can say is that he must not be looking at the same economy as the rest of us.

NYT's Strange New Dis-Respect: 'Hating Woodrow Wilson' Suddenly OK When Liberal Campus Protestors Demand it
By Clay Waters | November 24, 2015 | 10:37 AM EST

It's suddenly acceptable in the New York Times to call liberal hero Woodrow Wilson a racist, now that a black campus pressure group is making demands that Princeton University strike the name of Wilson, former president of the university, from the name of its public policy school. Yet for years, prominent conservatives have reminded liberals of the blatant racism and discrimination practiced by the Democrat (an ID the Times failed to note), and the New York Times ignored those embarrassing facts when coming from the right.

CNN's Cuomo Boosts Kristof's Slam: U.S. Has Been Anti-Refugee Since '1938'
By Matthew Balan | November 23, 2015 | 5:51 PM EST

On Monday's New Day, CNN's Chris Cuomo attacked both Donald Trump and the majority of the American public for their stance against allowing 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country. Cuomo asserted that Trump was "playing into an us versus them mentality," and spotlighted the latest Bloomberg poll result on the issue: "Look at the numbers on the Syrian situation. Look at what the American people say...We haven't seen numbers like this in America since 1938, when people were obviously desperate; obviously, running for their lives."

Bogus Smears: New York Daily News Tags NRA As De Facto Jihad Enablers Twice in Six Days
By Tom Blumer | November 23, 2015 | 3:50 PM EST

New York Daily News covers on November 18 ("NRA'S SICK JIHAD" — noted at the time by NB's Kristine Marsh) and today ("NOWHERE TO HIDE, JIHADI WAYNE") have accused the NRA of placing the right to purchase guns ahead of public safety from terrorist attacks.

The paper's bogus claim is based on the NRA's opposition to legislation prohibiting anyone on the government's "terror watch list" from purchasing a gun. While the idea might appear to have sensible on the surface, it doesn't survive scrutiny, as the folks at the group's legislative arm painstakingly explained over four years ago:

Typical Media Miss: Actual Year-Over-Year October Existing Home Sales Up Just 1 Pct., Not 4 Pct.
By Tom Blumer | November 23, 2015 | 1:56 PM EST

Gosh, this gets tiresome.

Once again, with one noteworthy exception, the business press's virtually blind acceptance of seasonally adjusted economic data, and its accompanying refusal to look at the underlying raw data, led it to paint a deceptive picture of an important element of the economy. This time, it was existing home sales for October. The seasonally adjusted annual rate for October reported by the National Association of Realtors this morning is almost 4 percent higher than seen in October 2014. The trouble is, the raw sales data show an increase of less than 1 percent.