Economy

In attempting to make the case that "Even as the private sector has been slowly adding jobs, governments have been shedding them," a chart from the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, shows how public-sector employment (not labeled as "seasonally adjusted," but that's what it is) has declined from a peak of 22.3 million in May of 2010 to 21.3 million in January 2013. There's…

Forbes just published its 20 Most Miserable Cities List for 2013. The magazine left off several obviously more "worthy" contenders, perhaps because its decisions to include and exclude certain criteria were, to say the least, more than a little odd. I have listed the magazine's top twenty following the jump, along with each city's mayor and that person's political leanings, showing a…

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had some harsh words Friday for all the fearmongering going on around the country concerning the looming sequester next week. Appearing on Fox News's Happening Now, Paul said, "Balderdash. It’s untrue, unfair, dishonest, disingenuous. The president is making stuff up" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Yesterday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner featured a discussion about the Keystone XL Pipeline, which is anathema to the environmental left, and which President Obama cynically delayed a decision on until after the 2012 election.  With the decision to approve or decline the project still looming for President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry -- who technically is the point…

The journalists of Good Morning America on Friday adopted White House talking points, foreseeing a "fiscal emergency" that will "cripple" flights in the United States. Jon Karl warned, "When it comes to air travel, the first thing we'll all see are longer lines at airport security. Expect ten percent fewer TSA agents on the job." An ABC graphic blared, "Seven Days to Fiscal Emergency: Air…

For the past six weeks combined, actual jobless claims filed nationwide have been virtually the same as the were during the six comparable weeks in early 2012. You wouldn't know that from Christopher Rugaber's coverage at the Associated Press of the Department of Labor's unemployment claims report released yesterday. Rugaber, who described last month's jobs report showing the unemployment…

Update (15:50 EST, Feb. 22): Twitchy reports Amanpour deleted the tweet and subsequently insisted her birthday wish was ironic. "[W]hat do you get for the serial human rights abuser who has everything?" the folks at Twitchy snarked today reacting to this tweet by CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour: "Happy Birthday, President Mugabe: http://on.cnn.com/VQ4kTK #Zimbabwe" But wait, it gets better…

MSNBC's Chuck Todd on Thursday echoed a liberal columnist and mocked the idea of blaming Barack Obama for sequester spending cuts, even though it was the President's idea. On Thursday's Daily Rundown, Todd sneered, "Of all the dumb things Washington does, this 'who started it' argument has proven to be one of the dumber ones, especially since we're so close to the actual cuts going into place…

The media don't care about the fact the the sequester was President Obama's idea in the first place, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on the February 20 edition of CNBC's Kudlow Report. What's more, the media certainly don't care that the sequester will impose a mere two percent reduction in federal spending, hardly a "meat cleaver" approach to reducing spending. The media are "beyond…

Yesterday, the Department of Labor announced that it had certified "more than 18,000 former Hostess workers around the country as eligible to apply for Trade Adjustment Assistance." I'll save excerpts from DOL's inane announcement for after the jump. The story has garnered some local coverage in areas affected by Hostess plant closures late last year, including a couple of regional Associated…

I am indebted to Amity Shlaes for gently correcting a joke of mine that dates back to July 8, 1972. On that date in the New York Times, I joshed that President Calvin Coolidge "probably spent more time napping than any president in the nation's history" and therefore was a successful president. My joke was a play on an earlier joke by H. L. Mencken, and now Shlaes has corrected both of us. She…

This goes back about ten days, and I originally missed it. Fortunately, though, an Investor's Business Daily editorial got around to mentioning Rick Perry's visit to California last week in an effort to lure businesses to the more commerce-friendly environs of Texas. Associated Press report Juliet Williams and her story's headline writer were not amused by Perry's aggressiveness. Williams…

While the President and his media minions are trying to scare everyone into thinking that if the sequestration on federal spending goes through on March 1 it will be the end of the world, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer had a different view Wednesday. Appearing on Fox News's Special Report, Krauthammer said, "This is the most ridiculously hyped Armageddon since the Mayan calendar…

Wednesday's CBS This Morning played up the supposedly gargantuan cuts in government spending that would go into the effect if the sequester goes into effect on March 1. Charlie Rose trumpeted the "massive spending cuts" set to take effect, while Gayle King underlined that the "deep automatic spending cuts" were quickly approaching. But neither anchor pointed out that $85 billion in cuts come…