Several AP Reports Bury Obama's Demand for Twice as Much in Tax Hikes

When it comes to reporting on the what the White House wants to achieve in talks with Congress about averting the "fiscal cliff," one apparent theme at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, has been "Bury the lede about the size of Obama's tax increases." I'll cover another theme ("Let them get away with misstating the 'balanced approach'") in a later post. President Obama now…

Stocks Tank After Obama Press Conference

Investors were clearly displeased with Barack Obama's comments Wednesday about raising taxes on the top two percent of wage earners. In fact, stocks began to drop during the President's press conference, and then tanked once he was done (chart courtesy BigCharts.com).

CNN: Obama's Win Wasn't a Mandate...Except It Was

Despite CNN correspondent Dana Bash's claim that "neither side has a really clear mandate" from the election, CNN anchors went ahead on Tuesday and Wednesday and pushed Republicans to admit that President Obama has a mandate to raise taxes by virtue of his party's election gains. On Tuesday night, Piers Morgan called Paul Ryan's denial of a mandate "ridiculous, given President Obama was re-…

AP's Final Report on October Deficit Equates Bush and Obama Deficits

Well, there's one little bit of good news in Martin Crutsinger's final report on yesterday's release of the federal government's October Monthly Treasury Statement (I did a review of his initial take yesterday [at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog]). The good news is that Crutsinger, unlike in most months during the past several years I have reviewed such reports, actually identified the single-month…

Politico Pair Goes to Pot in Listing Seven Questions It Believes the P

Unless today is a total surprise and runs contrary to most of what we've seen during the past four years, President Obama will go through another "news conference" without a great deal of difficult or aggressive questioning from the assembled press corps. Carrie Budoff Brown and Josh Gerstein at the Politico seem to think otherwise, and have produced a lame list of seven questions they think…

Oh, Now They Tell Us: NYT's Weisman Details Democrats' Embrace of Romn

Oh, now they tell us. As Republicans lick their political wounds, Democrats bask in the glory of winning what was suppose to be a highly contested election, and Washington is abuzz about the looming fiscal cliff which will plunge millions of Americans into higher taxes, The New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman wrote today that liberals are now seeing some of Romney’s economic agenda as beneficial…

MRCTV Finds Average Joe and Jane Unaware of the 'Fiscal Cliff

We at NewsBusters and the Media Research Center are located just inside the Capital Beltway in Old Town Alexandria. If any place is going to have folks walking around aware of the so-called fiscal cliff -- when the Bush tax cuts expire and automatic spending cuts are set to kick in -- you'd think it would be here. But MRCTV's Dan Joseph found that most folks on the street were unaware of the…

Year-Over-Year Deficit Worsens in October, and the Problem Is Spending

The government's October 2012 Monthly Treasury Statement was released at 2 p.m. It tells us that the government took in $184 billion ($21 billion more than last year) while spending $304 billion ($43 billion more), leaving a $120 billion deficit. That's 22% higher than the October 2011 shortfall of $98.5 billion. The early report from the Associated Press's Martin Crustinger predictably tells…

CNN Badgers Congressman to Tear Up No-Tax-Hike Pledge

[UPDATE BELOW] CNN's Christine Romans and Soledad O'Brien teamed up on Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Tuesday's Starting Point, pressuring him to renege on his pledge not to raise tax rates. "So would you be fine doing a compromise where you would go against your signature on that pledge?" O'Brien pressed Chaffetz over Grover Norquist's pledge not to hike tax rates and not to increase tax…

Food Stamp Enrollment Is Up by More Under Obama Than During Bush's Eig

Consider it a grim, hidden, unreported milestone, and yet another media failure. The grim milestone relates to the increase in food stamp enrollment during the Obama administration. As Dave Gibson at Examiner.com noted on Saturday, the administration and campaign (as if there was any difference) did not release program participation data for August until three days after the election, roughly…

CNBC's Cramer Forecasts Recession by Christmas if Fiscal Cliff Not Res

CNBC’s Jim Cramer predicted a possible recession by Christmas if lawmakers didn’t step up and make some sort of deal in regards to the looming fiscal cliff. His prediction came during an Nov. 11 appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We can gift wrap a recession by Christmas. We can set it right into place without some agreement,” Cramer told “Meet the Press” host David Gregory. He attributed…

On PBS and NPR, Liberals Agree With David Brooks: They'll Jump Off Fis

Last Friday, in his first post-election remarks on PBS and NPR, New York Times columnist David Brooks downplayed his usual bash- conservatives  narrative, and actually castigated liberals for wanting to go over the looming fiscal cliff.  He said that liberals are more organized, they’ve won the election, and will get most of what they yearn for if we do go over the waterfall: increased revenue…

Bob Woodward Shocker: There Is a Way to Raise Revenue AND Lower Tax Ra

Stop the presses! Stop the presses! The Washington Post's Bob Woodward on The Chris Matthews Show Sunday not only called Democrat visions of balancing the budget by raising taxes on the rich a "fantasy," but he also said "there is a way to...raise more revenue and perhaps lower the rates" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

AP Explains Week's Market Decline Which Began on Wednesday as Entirely

Those in the press who claim to completely understand why stock market indices containing 30, 500, or thousands of individual companies went up or down on any given day are at best theorizing and at worst dissembling. The way the press handled this week's decline by blaming it all on the "fiscal cliff," as if it only became relevant on Wednesday morning, definitely fits in the latter category.…