Apparently, the sheer number of weak to awful economic reports seen during the past month or so finally led Josh Boak at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, to acknowledge that "critical pieces of the economy remain troubled almost six years into the recovery."
Boak's belated timing is interesting, to say the least, given that the Federal Reserve is weighing whether or not to raise interest rates for the first time in six years several months from now.
After yesterday's government report on economic growth reduced the fourth quarter's originally estimated increase in gross domestic product from an annualized 2.6 percent to 2.2 percent, you just knew that the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, would try to ride to the rescue.
Late Friday afternoon, the AP's Martin Crutsinger gamely tried to concoct five reasons why we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads over a growth figure which confirms that the worst post-World War II recovery on record continues to be the worst post-World War II recovery on record. He only came up with four highly questionable reasons, while pretending he still had five (bolds and numbered tags are mine; I also numbered the reporter's reasons):
On Friday, Jim Kuhnhenn at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, seemed to enjoy President Barack Obama's rant against Republicans and others grossly dissatisfied with the economy's performance on his watch. He described Obama as "taunting Republicans" in his speech at the Democratic Party's winter meeting in Washington.
The wire service itself seems less enamored of Kuhnhenn's less than presidential portrayal of Obama. Based on a search on "taunting," the first word in his report, it is no longer present at the AP's national site.
The Seattle Seahawks yesterday - in a moment of profound foolishness - forsook Beast Mode for Least Mode. And it cost them the Super Bowl. But they can take ever so slight solace - the Media has been in Least Mode for decades.
This has been on prominent display throughout the Barack Obama Administration - and certainly when it comes to the Administration’s many, MANY unilateral power grabs.
First, a bit of a Constitutional primer for a Media that seems to desperately need it. Congress is the Legislative Branch. They write laws - which the President then signs. Said President presides over the Executive Branch. His many, many, MANY Departments, Agencies, Commissions and Boards are then - and only then - charged with executing the legislation Congress first composed.
Even Charles Babington at the Associated Press, for once not the completely beholden Administration's Press, seemed to be having a hard time buying what Democrats at a meeting in Philadelphia were selling. Unfortunately, he decided to let Joe Biden's direct contradiction of his party's congressional delegation's sunnyside-up stance on the economy go unreported.
In a video carried at the Weekly Standard, Biden said, "To state the obvious, the past six years have been really, really hard for this country, And they've been really tough for our party. Just ask [former DCCC chair] Steve [Israel]. They've been really tough for our party. And together we made some really, really tough decisions -- decisions that weren't at all popular, hard to explain." Despite how "really, really hard" it has all been, the party is attempting an "in your face" at those who want to claim that it has been that way because of the Obama administration's economic policies. Excerpts from Babington's AP report follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
It would seem that the conversation at Politico went something like this: "Hey, we need to hit the Obama administration for the havoc its policies have wreaked on the middle class. But we can't go after them too hard, because that might burn some bridges, and we'll lose our stenographer — er, journalistic — access. So we need to use someone sympathetic to Democrats who will know how not to go over the line."
They chose contributing editor Zachary Karabell, who during most of his writeup did a presentable job of being not too critical while posing as an objective observer — that is, until his final four paragraphs.
As President Barack Obama and Governor Jerry Brown continue to extol the wonders of the alleged economic recovery of nation and the Golden State, respectively, stories of significant growth in homelessness continue to rain on their parades. The latest example comes on the heels of reports on Seattle's burgeoning problem and the city's apparent willingness to allow officially sanctioned outdoor encampments to serve as a "temporary" (yeah, sure) solution.
In a Saturday item in the Los Angeles Times about the expansion of "homeless camps" outside of what had been known as the LA's "skid row," Times reporter Gale Holland apparently learned not to repeat a revealing disclosure she made in a December Times report covering the situation in San Jose. Her coverage was remarkably vague, failing to provide specifics I believe she could have relayed with little effort, especially given that homelessness and poverty is her assigned beat. Excerpts follow the jump.
Someone looking at the annual "Union Members" report released this morning by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics would logically conclude that 2014 was a year organized labor would rather forget.
While average nonagricultural wage and salary employment increased by over 2.32 million from 2013 to 2014, union membership only went up by 48,000, or about 2 percent of the nationwide increase. Additionally, the private sector's 41,000-person pickup in union membership was only 1.6 percent of its total 2.55 million increase. Yes, that means that public-sector union membership increased a bit while public-sector employment declined by 226,000. Of course, no such decidedly negative nuggets made their way into Labor Secretary Tom Perez's press release or Tom Raum's Associated Press report, excerpts of which follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
In his State of the Union address — perhaps, based on the recommendations for government involvement and control he made therein, better described as his Statist of the Union address — President Obama referenced the "growing" U.S. economy at least three times, but "recovery" only once. Specifically, he claimed that "thanks to a growing economy, the recovery is touching more and more lives."
The recovery, which Obama acknowledged is still in progress over 5-1/2 years after the recession officially ended, has a great deal more "touching" to do. On January 12, the National Association of Counties released a detailed study which most of the press ignored, but which would have been front-page and broadcast-leading news in a Republican or conservative presidential administration. The NACo report showed that only 65 of the nation's 3,069 counties have fully recovered from the recession. That's bad enough, but even with that ugly statistic, the results involved are worse than they appear.
A week ago, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, a Democrat, called homelessness in his city and the rest of King County a "full-blown crisis."
Based on the numbers presented in coverage of the area's situation, we can certainly add the Emerald City to the list of areas where homelessness has been on the rise. Odds are that many readers here didn't know that, because the national press hardly ever pays attention to homelessness when a Democrat occupies the White House. Now imagine the firestorm which would erupt if a Republican or conservative proposed the "solution," however allegedly temporary, Murray is advancing (bolds are mine):
Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who died on Thursday, is predictably being lionized today by USA Today's Aamer Madhani "as (a) giant in political rhetoric," and by others elsewhere in similarly glowing terms.
Madhani goes on to characterize the three-term Empire State chief executive's 1984 Democratic Convention speech in San Francisco as "what is widely considered one of the finest pieces of political rhetoric in recent memory." That it probably was. But he also calls it "a full-throated rebuttal of President Ronald Reagan, who would go on to a landslide victory over the Democratic nominee Walter Mondale." On that, Madhani is absolutely wrong. It was an attempt at a rebuttal which has since been thoroughly refuted and discredited.
Friday's Employment Situation Summary contained one strong element: In November, the economy added 321,000 seasonally adjusted payroll jobs. That's not insignificant, but that news, especially in the report's full context, certainly didn't justify the level of elation seen in much of the press.
Predictably, the Associated Press found a specious reason to characterize the government's report as signifying a "turning point." Get a load of why: "For the first time since the Great Recession ended 5-1/2 years ago, America's unemployed are now as likely to be hired as to stop looking for a job." In other words, for the first time in 65 months, what people would expect to be a normal situation finally occurred.