Budget

Friday's report on the federal government's budget deficit through August told us that with one month remaining in the fiscal year, Uncle Sam will certainly "achieve" an all-time single-year record in tax collections accompanied by all-time record spending. The Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger apparently didn't consider either item newsworthy. Instead, he decided that the real news is this…

The Los Angeles Times apparently doesn't think "women who were born during botched abortions in the 1970s" are abortion "survivors," as a Wednesday article about two such women featured a title that put the term in scare quotes: "Abortion 'survivors' criticize Planned Parenthood on Capitol Hill." Marcus E. Howard led the item by hyping that "House Republicans on Wednesday fueled an already…

It would be easy to conclude, based on its treatment of a story about Illinois lottery winners suing to force the state to disburse their payouts, that the Associated Press really doesn't want readers and its subscribing outlets to learn about it. This "keep them in the dark" approach is consistent with a previous AP story on the state's failure to pay lottery winners. Let's start with that…

Silly me. I really thought that every state's lottery operation was walled off from the rest of its finances. They collect bets, pay out winnings and administrative costs, and turn over the profits to general fund. End of discussion. No muss, no fuss. Right? In Illinois, based on recent developments, we know that's obviously not the case — leading me to wonder how many other states potentially…

Miami Herald sportwriter and columnist Greg Cote, whose career has entered or is about to enter its third decade, seems to have incorporated a sideline into his work: glib, ignorant political commentary. One such example surfaced at the end of his August 25 Random Evidence blog post. Apparently, Cote believes that anyone who has ever received any kind of government benefit or has made use of a…

Imagine if, in 1987, a Federal Reserve official could have pointed to a poorly performing economy and said, "Gee, this supply-side economics hasn't worked out very well." The press would surely have treated the story as a front-page item and ensured that it got air time on the Big Three networks' then-dominant nightly news broadcasts. Of course, there was no such credible report, because the…

Carrying water for the left as their pet programs implode while pretending to be an objective reporter is a daunting task. The Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher was not up to that task Thursday afternoon. Twice, in relatively early paragraphs of his 31-paragraph writeup, the AP reporter claimed that the Social Security system has "money." He then separately quoted a Democratic congressperson…

Records are made to be broken, but apparently government spending records are not meant to be reported. The Monthly Treasury Statement released today showed that the federal government spent a mind-boggling $374.86 billion in July. That's an all-time single-month record, surpassing the previous high of $369.39 billion "achieved" in August 2012. Yes, there was a calendar "quirk" which caused this…

In his MSNBC show The Last Word Tuesday evening, Lawrence O’Donnell dedicated a segment to describing his opinion of what “good and bad socialism” looks like. Naturally his example of “good” socialism included the man and policies Bernie Sanders. It also included a 6 year old cover from Newsweek magazine that proclaimed “We Are All Socialists now,” which detailed how it's becoming normal (and…

As Puerto Rico, under the leadership of President Obama’s pal, Governor Alejandro García- Padilla (D) defaults on its debt payments to bondholders, Univision aired an entirely one-sided report about an “anti-austerity” demonstration in front of a New York-based investment firm.

MSNBC's Thomas Roberts surprisingly pursued Hillary Clinton spokeswoman Karen Finney on his Wednesday program over the ongoing controversy surrounding the undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of the organs of aborted babies. When Finney admitted that Mrs. Clinton had only seen clips of the videos, Roberts wondered, "Why not see the videos?" He later underlined…

CNN's Jake Tapper went after Josh Earnest on Monday's The Lead, after the White House press secretary admitted that he hadn't seen any of the undercover Planned Parenthood videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, and was "relying on news reports that I've seen" about the controversy. Tapper pointed out that "the whole video is put up on the website of this anti-abortion group that put…

Appearing on Wednesday's New Day, CNN political reporter Sara Murray sounded more like a liberal CNN political commentator as she slammed GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush's comments about the federal government perhaps spending more money than it should on women's issues, as she called his remarks "cringeworthy" and "demeaning." She went on to declare that the Bush soundbite was a "gift" for…