The desperation is palpable at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, over how the Christmas shopping season is going.

Having appearently learned something contrary to the "consumers will catch up with their spending" we've been hearing from the National Retail Federation and others so far, AP Business Writer Joyce M. Rosenberg shifted gears and decided that consumers are spending less this year on individual gifts because, well, "Cheap is the new chic." Having spoken with one of Rosenburg's sources, readers can be assured that "chic" has absolutely nothing to do with it.

One hesitates to give attention to Jesse A. Myerson. But it's probably worth it, if for no other reason to contend that many of his beliefs are likely shared by the mindless lemmings disguised as "journalists" who wildly cheered on Saturday when an obviously orchestrated "climate change" agreement designed ultimately to redistribute massive amounts of wealth from developed to underdeveloped countries — which would virtually guarantee that they will stay undeveloped — was announced in Paris.

Almost two years ago, Myerson, whose experience includes "the Media and Labor Outreach committees at Occupy Wall Street," identified of "Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For" in a Rolling Stone column. A week ago at The Nation, he vacuously attempted to elaborate on one of those five ideas, namely: "Let’s get rid of private housing."

The political definition of Cronyism is: government policy that favors one or more specific beneficiaries - at the expense of everyone else.  To wit: $80 billion of the 2009 “Stimulus” was wasted on “green energy” companies - 80% of whom were Barack Obama donors.  Amongst the parade of horribles contained therein: the government took money from energy companies - to fund competitors to their energy companies.  

Sadly, a $3.5-trillion-a-year federal government budget is filled to the rafters with nigh-endless Cronyism.  There’s so much to undo - one must triage and prioritize.  And while we work to reduce and eliminate, we most certainly should not create a whole new Cronyism - that will dwarf all the others combined. 

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) late last week gave us a quintessential example of aiming at the tiny - while they have for years championed the huge.  Behold:

The media are, of course, almost uniformly Leftist - which means they just about always toe the Party line.  Including the belief that in order to help the poor - government must perpetually grow.  Of course we conservatives also want to help the poor - we just think shrinking government is the way to actually do it.

When things get more expensive - the poor get hammered hardest.  But the media misses the obvious - the more government there is, the more things cost.  It is axiomatic - in (at least) two ways. 

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):