Budget

The New York Times keeps harping on how the sequester-fueled budger cuts may make flying more dangerous, led by reporter Matthew Wald. On February 22 Wald warned "Airlines and airports across the country are preparing for across-the-board federal budget cuts due to hit next week as if they were a hurricane, although with even less certainty about how many flights they will have to cancel and…

Your daily dose of inadvertent humor comes from an article by Annie Lowrey at the New York Times on Sunday evening ("Lew to Press for European Policy Changes"; also in today's print edition). In "covering" (from Washington?) Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's four-day European trip for meetings with EU leaders encouraging them to pursue "growth" policies -- which in Keynesians' fevered minds…

CNBC’s Jim Cramer made a statement on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that likely shocked the host as well as the other liberal media members involved in the discussion. After David Gregory mentioned Friday’s lousy unemployment report, Cramer said, “This is stunning. Stunning. And I think a lot of it had to do with fearmongering” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

I guess Byron Tau thought he had to make it look like Big Labor is really, really mad at President Barack Obama and the White House so he could make Obama look like he's a moderate on economic and fiscal issues. Thus his Sunday morning post's headline: "Labor targets Obama over proposed benefit cuts." Of course, they aren't "cuts" at all, though they are being portrayed as such. All Obama has…

After telling the world on Thursday that "Gone are the fears that the economy could fall into another recession," it seems that the Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber needed some help explaining away Friday's weak jobs report from the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The AP had four reporters on Friday evening's coverage, all seemingly in search of a viable excuse for another "…

The deck of headlines over Friday's lead New York Times story by White House reporter Jackie Calmes illustrated how hard it will be for conservatives to actually reduce the national debt: "Social Programs Facing A Cutback In Obama Budget -- Smaller Increase Seen -- Show of Compromise Is Aimed at Reviving Deficit Deal." The Times actually contradicted itself within its headline, announcing…

All three networks on Wednesday and Thursday parroted the exact same talking points from the White House, touting Barack Obama for expressing "solidarity" with struggling workers by taking a five percent pay cut. The President made the move, which amounts to a minuscule $1700 a month, in the wake of sequestration. On Good Morning America, Josh Elliott trumpeted, "[Obama] says he wants to show…

Does journalistic insistence on catapulting President Barack Obama into historic greatness and relevance know no bounds? CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley on Tuesday night insisted upon trumpeting Obama’s proposal, to spend $100 million to map the human brain, through the hagiographic maneuver of putting Obama into a trilogy with the triumphs of Thomas Jefferson and John Kennedy: "Finally…

At the Politico, Darren Samuelsohn reports that "The public has largely tuned out the Democrats’ repeated warnings about ... (what will happen) if the sequester cuts stay in place." He also notes in a separate report that Republicans "Republicans are winning the sequester wars," and that "even the White House admits there’s little chance of reversing all the cuts." Of course, what's in…

So much for Cyprus being a "one-off." On Wednesday, Bruno Waterfield at the UK Telegraph relayed that "Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, told the FT and Reuters that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future banking crises across Europe." That's "would," not "could." The Associated Press hasn't had the nerve to correctly…

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan is mighty proud of himself this week. Today, he wrote that the negative response to a column he wrote on Wednesday ("One last call to service – end military funeral honors") is "pig heaven for an attention-craving columnist." The porcine parallel McClellan made seems more than appropriate in the circumstances. You see, Budget-cutter Bill is…

On Thursday, George Stephanopoulos touted how legalizing same-sex "marriage" would supposedly bring in additional revenue into the federal government's coffers. The former Clinton administration official claimed that "the Treasury would actually take in more money if gays and lesbians were allowed to get married and get federal benefits." Stephanopoulos cited an eight-plus year old study…

On February 28, though he hedged a bit, Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, wrote the following about prospects for economic growth: "The only impediment may be the across-the-board government spending cuts that kick in Friday — especially if those cuts remain in place for months." Having established the template, the self-described Essential Global News…