By Tom Blumer | January 27, 2015 | 10:02 PM EST

On Friday, Melissa Quinn at the Daily Signal, after the release of the government's "Union Members -- 2014" report, uniquely observed that the unionized percentage of the public- and private-sector nonagricultural wage and salary U.S. workforce had reached "its lowest rate in 100 years." From what I can tell in web and news searches, despite the fact that virtually any 100-year record is ordinarily considered newsworthy, no major establishment press outlet has reported what Quinn found.

The report from Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statisics claims that 1983 is "the first year for which comparable union data are available." Perhaps, but there is data available going back much further, and it has been used occasionally in previous media reports. That data also indicates that private-sector union membership is at its lowest point since the turn of the century — from the 19th to the 20th century, that is.

By Tom Blumer | June 26, 2014 | 3:47 PM EDT

The press, even in the wake of yesterday's awful reported 2.9 percent annualized first-quarter contraction, continues to regale us with noise about the economy's "recovery" during the past five years.

As P.J. Gladnick at NewsBusters noted yesterday, CNNMoney.com's Annalyn Kurtz, in giving readers "3 reasons not to freak out about -2.9% GDP," concluded her report by telling readers that "This recovery is underway, but it's choppy and still very slow." Actually, it may have resumed this quarter. At the Associated Press yesterday, Martin Crutsinger all too predictably wrote that "the setback is widely thought to be temporary, with growth rebounding solidly since spring." After almost five years of this nonsense, it's long past time that they start telling readers, listeners, and viewers that this economy bears more resemblance to the 1930s economy under Franklin Delano Roosevelt than it does any post-downturn economy we've seen since the end of World War II. Hard proof follows the jump.

By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. | June 21, 2012 | 10:20 AM EDT

Warren Kozak, the author of "LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay," wrote a memorable piece in "The Wall Street Journal" on June 6, 2012 that cries out for comment. On the 68th anniversary of the Allies' invasion of Europe over the bloody beaches of Normandy, he reminds us of an unthinkable act by President Franklin Roosevelt on that day. At least it is an unthinkable act today. The president did not call a press conference to notify Americans huddled before their radios of what our military was doing. They already knew from news reports, though they might have learned even more from their president. Nor did President Roosevelt boast of how he had marshaled our troops and given the order to action, as the present occupier of his office is prone to do.

Instead, Roosevelt offered a prayer, a prayer of unthinkable dimensions nowadays. I suspect if I were of voting age in 1944, I would have been a Republican. Yet, as President Roosevelt spoke, he would have spoken for me. Transported back to the battle of Normandy, I would have taken heart in his words. Would a Barack Obama, similarly transported back across the decades, have taken heart? Or would he and millions of other miraculously transported Americans from the present have squirmed? Would they have filed lawsuits through the American Civil Liberties Union? Is this not another of those church and state conundrums that we conjure up today?

By Brad Wilmouth | February 6, 2012 | 8:44 AM EST

On Sunday's Chris Matthews Show, after panel member Richard Stengel of Time magazine argued that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is an example of a wealthy President who connected with average Americans more effectively than GOP presidential candidate Mitt Rommney does, NBC Andrea Mitchell praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for donating $250,000 to Planned Parenthood, arguing that it helped him "connect to people" in his "constituency." After an anecdote from Stengel about Roosevelt, Mitchell injected:

By Noel Sheppard | January 30, 2012 | 12:30 PM EST

The ridiculous media hypocrisy concerning all the fuss over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's wealth and income tax rate was perfectly demonstrated on MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday.

After claiming that Romney's "tax issue is not remotely" past him, John Heilemann, the National Affairs editor for New York magazine, admitted that he never reported John Kerry's income tax rate during the 2004 campaign (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By Tim Graham | September 7, 2011 | 6:57 AM EDT

Time's Ten Questions to Matt Damon beat around the bush about Damon's disappointment with President Obama as he's failed to deliver for the teachers' unions, but when asked what kind of leader America needs, Damon suggested "someone like FDR," and not like Obama. They didn't discuss the Education Secretary offering to meet the celebrity at the airport.

This has to be especially embarrassing for Time, since many people remember their fawning Obama-as-FDR cover.

By Noel Sheppard | September 2, 2011 | 10:24 AM EDT

Somebody better tell incoming MSNBC host Chris Hayes the network giving him his own show later this month doesn't cotton to commentators disrespecting President Obama.

On Thursday's "The Last Word," Hayes told host Lawrence O'Donnell the current White House resident can't run his reelection campaign like Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in 1936 because FDR actually had a strong economic record to boast about (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By Noel Sheppard | August 4, 2011 | 7:01 PM EDT

Chris Matthews on Thursday claimed Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved capitalism in the 1930s.

This deliciously came during a "Hardball" segment wherein he mocked the intelligence of Tea Party members saying they "need to read history, and especially Michele Bachmann" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By Fred Lucas | July 25, 2011 | 2:17 PM EDT

President Barack Obama said that Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) – the president best known for establishing a welfare and regulatory state in America – was “fiscally conservative,” in response to a question about how to keep the economy going.

Obama was referring to spending-cut measures Roosevelt took in the middle of the New Deal that lasted from 1933 to 1940.

By Noel Sheppard | May 30, 2011 | 1:49 PM EDT

Despite Obamanomics' failure to stimulate the economy, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman still believes Washington can solve all that ails us if we would just spend more money we don't have.

Toward that end, the avowed liberal in his Monday New York Times column called for a new New Deal-like program to hire unemployed people to - wait for it - repair roads:

By Noel Sheppard | May 15, 2011 | 10:11 PM EDT

The depths the shills on the Left will go to impugn their enemies knows no bounds.

On Sunday, the George Soros-funded organization Think Progress falsely accused Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx.) of comparing Social Security and Medicare to slavery (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

By Noel Sheppard | February 21, 2011 | 1:19 AM EST

The unhinged paranoia on the left knows no bounds.

Take for example New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who believes that Governor Scott Walker's grand plan is to lessen democracy in Wisconsin and America eventually replacing government with a third-world-style oligarchy: