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Not News: Health Care Division at Jeffrey Immelt's GE Hurt by Obamacare
By Tom Blumer | April 30, 2014 | 4:03 PM EDT

General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt has made nice with President Barack Obama on several occasions. Among other things, he chaired the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which met a grand total of four times in 2011 and 2012 before it was unceremoniously allowed to expire a year later. He fully expected that his company would benefit from its involvement in green energy and its membership in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. He also endeared himself to Team Obama by calling "other U.S. business leaders greedy and mean."

In more than a minor comeuppance, as well as the latest evidence that business-related news reflecting badly on the Obama administration almost never escapes the business pages and center-right blogs and outlets, Inmelt's company has seen its medical division hit hard by the onset of Obamacare. Portions of Bloomberg News's original April 17 report follow the jump.

NYT Runs Lefty Group's Evidence of 'Fast-Food Recovery' in Wages on Page B4; AP Ignores
By Tom Blumer | April 29, 2014 | 1:44 PM EDT

The National Employment Law Project claims that it is dedicated to "working to restore the promise of economic opportunity in the 21st century economy." That sounds promising, but one look at NELP's directors and the supposed "solutions" the group and its friends advocate — e.g., higher minimum wage, "uphold the freedom to join a union." etc. It's clear that NELP is just another lefty advocacy group pushing the kinds of policies which have led to six years of economic weakness.

That said, NELP recently released research showing that jobs gained since the recession ended have skewed far more heavily towards low-wage industries than the jobs which were lost during the recession. Press coverage has been skimpy. The one major writeup at the New York Times on Sunday for Monday's print edition appeared on Page B4. The nature of Annie Lowrey's coverage at the Times led Fox News to accuratey tease it as a story about the "Fast-Food Recovery." Excerpts from the Times story follow the jump (bolds are mine):

Press Ignores Harvard Prof Alleging 'Astonishing Interference' in Latest IPCC Global Warming Report
By Tom Blumer | April 28, 2014 | 5:38 PM EDT

Professor Robert N. Stavins at Harvard's Kennedy School hardly seems like a major climate change/global warming boat-rocker. At his blog last year, he described climate change as "the ultimate global commons problem," where "international, if not global, cooperation is essential." Commenting on climate talks in Doha, Qatar in December 2012, he saw the role of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements as helping countries and international bodies "address climate change in ways that are scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic."

So Stavins is no "denier," as enviros on the left are given to calling anyone who dares to question climate change dogma. But he strongly objects to how his role in the latest IPCC report relating to how countries might co-operate to reduce carbon emissions — basically where the rubber meets the road in affecting everyday citizens' lives — was compromised by intense political interference. Excerpts from the UK Daily Mail's coverage, once again an instance of the UK tabloids scooping the U.S. press, follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

NARAL Successfully Lobbies Google to Ditch Crisis Pregnancy Center Ads
By Ken Shepherd | April 28, 2014 | 4:45 PM EDT

The nation's staunchest pro-abortion lobby has successfully pressed Google to take down numerous crisis pregnancy center ads, Hayley Tsukayama of the Washington Post reported this afternoon (emphasis mine):

Press Tries to Discredit Conservatives With Cliven Bundy, Ignores Large Dem Donor Convicted of Brutal Domestic Abuse
By Tom Blumer | April 25, 2014 | 12:12 AM EDT

The press and the left are trying to pretend that Cliven Bundy, the Republican Party, and conservatism are all one and the same, despite no evidence of that being the case, because of intemperate things Mr. Bundy has said. Meanwhile, there is deafening silence over the very real actions of Gurbaksh Chahal, a significant Democratic Party donor who has expressed solidarity with liberalism and the Democratic Party with his mouth and his wallet.

Bundy has made arguably racist remarks. Chahal, who has donated over $108,000 to the Democratic Party and Democrat politicians — including President Barack Obama — during the past several years, has been "filmed hitting and kicking his girlfriend 117 times in (a) brutal 30-minute attack," but was somehow "sentenced to just 25 hours community service," largely because the judge involved "ruled the video inadmissible as the San Francisco Police Department had obtained it without a warrant" (for real-world purposes, note that he didn't describe it as inauthentic). Let's demonstrate the double standard by looking at the results of two searches done shortly after 11 p.m. on Thursday.

So Much For 'It Can't Happen Here'; Fetal Waste Turned Into Energy in Oregon
By Tom Blumer | April 23, 2014 | 11:29 PM EDT

A month ago, the UK Telegraph reported that "The remains of more than 15,000 babies were incinerated as 'clinical waste' by hospitals in Britain with some used in 'waste to energy' plants."

Prolife news sites and blogs as well as many other center-right outlets covered the story. The establishment press almost completely ignored it. Matt Balan of NewsBusters noted on March 26 that the story "got picked up by newspapers across much of the Anglosphere – including The Vancouver Sun and The Ottawa Citizen in Canada," but that it did not "receive wide coverage in the United States." More like barely any, with the only TV broadcast exception at the time being a segment on Fox News's The Five. Perhaps the non-coverage excuse was "Well, that's the UK. It could never happen here." That excuse was lame anyway, and now it's no longer operative (go to Page 3 at the B.C. Catholic link; story by Steve Weatherbe):

No Press Story IDs Sentenced Former Bell, Calif. City Manager as a Democrat
By Tom Blumer | April 16, 2014 | 2:06 PM EDT

In September 2010, Lachlan Markay at NewsBusters put up a post entitled "Eight Dems Arrested in Bell, CA 'Corruption on Steroids' - Not a Single Mention of Party Affiliation From Media."

Almost four years later (!), reviews of search engine results and specific news stories on the sentencing of Robert Rizzo, the community's former city manager, are again returning no mentions of the fact that Rizzo is a Democrat.

Establishment Press Lets CFPB Whistleblower Story Alleging Harassment and Racism Stay Buried at Politico
By Tom Blumer | April 7, 2014 | 4:54 PM EDT

The primary objection to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created as part of the mammoth Dodd-Frank legislation passed in 2010, has been its unaccountability. It "is ensconced within the Federal Reserve," which frees it from congressional and presidential oversight. Even the Fed "is statutorily prohibited from 'intervening' in CFPB affairs."

It should surprise no one that Richard Cordray, the unaccountable agency's director, seems to believe that he and his kingdom are untouchable. Cordray, a Democrat who not coincidentally has been mentioned as a possible down-the-road candidate to be Ohio's governor, has, according to a whistleblower, presided over a "'pervasive' culture of intimidation and hostility within the bureau." Further, according to the Washington Free Beacon's coverage of the whistleblower's testimony at a House Committee on Financial Services hearing, Cordray personally told the whistleblower "to have her attorneys 'back down.'" a Wednesday story at the Politico by M.J. Lee represents nearly the full extent of establishment press coverage I could locate. Excerpts from Lee's Politico story follow the jump.

Hillary Fails to Name a Single Accomplishment at State Department
By Tom Blumer | April 5, 2014 | 9:32 AM EDT

Several weeks ago, MRC-TV's Dan Joseph visited the Democratic Party's winter meeting to see if attendees could name a single tangible of Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State. They couldn't. It turns out that Hillary Clinton herself can't even do that.

Remember how Texas Governor Rick Perry was mercilessly ridiculed in the press for his 2011 debate brain cramp when he couldn't identify the third of three federal government agencies he would eliminate? At the Women of the World Summit in New York City on Thursday — an event held at, of all places, the David H. Koch Theater (you can't make this stuff up) — Mrs. Clinton rambled on and on in a response to a question about what she was most proud of in looking at her time as Secretary of State, but never identified even one specific accomplishment (HT Capitol City Project):

Many National Media Outlets Ignoring Couple Who Defrauded Two States For Seven Years
By Tom Blumer | March 31, 2014 | 5:48 PM EDT

Over at Hot Air, Dustin Siggins writes that Andrea and Colin Chisholm "are getting enormous media attention." Perhaps, and I really hope so. Unfortunately, I found no evidence of any level of attention to the Chisholms, the apparently very rich couple who allegedly engaged in protracted fraud against the welfare systems of Florida and Minnesota for seven years, at several national establishment press outlets.

Here are some of the infuriating details from ABC's weekend "Good Morning America" show, a rare establishment press exception (bolds are mine):

Former Greenpeace Official to Senate Panel: 'No Scientific Proof' of Human-Caused Global Warming
By Tom Blumer | February 28, 2014 | 1:48 PM EST

Patrick Moore is one of the early members of Greenpeace, and was an important official in that organization from 1971 to 1986.

Moore is among the last people one might expect to be a "climate change denier," as those who irritate us with the idea that human-caused global warming is "settled science" like to characterize people who disagree with them. But he is, as seen in Congressional testimony earlier this week. The establishment press is ignoring Patrick; the few identified results at the link come from British newspapers and center-right outlets. An Investor's Business Daily editorial yesterday highlighted what Moore had to say (bolds are mine):

Media Ignore Liberal Law Prof's 'Government Unto Himself' Warning on Obama Overreach
By Tom Blumer | February 28, 2014 | 8:12 AM EST

The volume of significant news going unreported in the establishment press has gone from astonishing to surreal. The best example of that, as intrepid NewsBusters posters have noted now for nine months, is the virtually complete blackout in the establishment press of developments in the IRS-conservative targeting scandal.

Separately, left-leaning law professor Jonathan Turley warned a Congressional committee on Wednesday that President Obama's extensive use of executive orders, executive actions, and unilateral regulatory moves threatens to enable the President, as Turley phrased it in a Fox News interview on Thursday, to "effectively become a government unto himself." If Turley had made his statement in 2006 or 2007 during the Iraq War, it would almost certainly have become a media obsession. Instead, as will be shown after the jump, Turley's testimony is being completely ignored by everyone except center-right news outlets and bloggers.