Economy

On Friday's CBS This Morning, Gayle King sided with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg over his controversial proposed ban of soft drinks over 16 ounces in size: "I'm all for anything that's going to make us healthy." Guest Jonathan Waxman, a chef in the Big Apple, also endorsed the Bloomberg plan: "I'm kind of happy that someone's making a stand here, because I think that it's empty…

MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Friday blamed today's abysmal jobs report on Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Oh.) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). Bashir also called the Speaker "a coward" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Good Morning America's Josh Elliott on Friday reported incorrect jobs numbers, touting stats more favorable to Barack Obama and less reflective of the dismal facts. In the 8am hour, news reader Elliott insisted that "new figures show" an unemployment rate "sitting" at 8.1 percent for May with 158,000 new jobs created. [See video below. MP3 audio here.] In fact, unemployment rose to 8.2 percent…

With the release of another horrid jobs report Friday, the Obama-loving media are already out in force trying to spin the numbers so they don't hurt the reelection prospects of the current White House resident. On CNN's Starting Point Friday, known Obama lover Soledad O'Brien defended the President's jobs record by telling Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-Tx.), "This is not in the last three…

After the jump is a graphic from Investor's Business Daily comparing post-recession consumer confidence readings from the Conference Board during the Reagan and Obama administrations. See it there or see it below, because you probably won't see it at any establishment press web site or in any of their publications. What's remarkable about the graphic is how confidence was able to stay at or…

In a generally even-handed report on yesterday's drop in consumer confidence as reported by the Conference Board (from a revised 68.7 to 64.9, vs. expectations of a rise to 69.6, according to Bloomberg), the Associated Press's Mae Anderson, with assistance from Christopher Rugaber, engaged in a bit of excuse-making in and downplaying in their later paragraphs. The AP pegged its water-down to…

Our nation is rapidly approaching a point from which there's little chance to avoid a financial collapse. The heart of our problem can be seen as a tragedy of the commons. That's a set of circumstances when something is commonly owned and individuals acting rationally in their own self-interest produce a set of results that's inimical to everyone's long-term interest. Let's look at an example…

CNN's Soledad O'Brien took Rudy Giuliani's words about Mitt Romney and spun them into a criticism of his jobs record, when in fact Giuliani had praised the candidate's resume on Sunday's State of the Union. On Tuesday's Starting Point, O'Brien said that Giuliani had "not so great" words for Romney's record, when in fact Giuliani said his jobs record as governor of Massachusetts was "decent…

NewsBusters reported Friday that the Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler gave a MarketWatch piece claiming President Obama's "spending binge never happened" three pinocchios for its utter falsehoods. On Monday, the Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former assistant managing editor Eugene Robinson actually misrepresented his own paper's findings to hype the thoroughly debunked…

A Los Angeles Times editorial on May 23, naturally accompanied by a dour photo of House Speaker John Boehner, stated as if it's an indisputable fact that the August 2011 debt deal raised the ceiling by "enough to last until the end of 2012 or early 2013." A Saturday AP report by Ken Thomas and Jim Kuhnhenn so filled with distortions that it's virtually unreadable asserted, again as if it's a no…

Former Democratic Michigan governor turned Current TV commentator Jennifer Granholm got a much-needed education Sunday about the difference between Mitt Romney's involvement with Bain Capital and President Obama's forays into green energy investment. "When Bain invested," said George Will on ABC's This Week, "it invests money that it gets voluntarily to be invested. When the president throws…

At the Associated Press aka the Administration's Press on Saturday, Andrew Taylor's "Fact Check" item on President Obama's stump speech claim in Iowa on Thursday dove into the trees without first looking at the forest. Distracted by ridiculousaurus Rex Nutting's write-up earlier in the week at MarketWatch ("Obama spending binge never happened"), which absurdly claimed that "government outlays…

Last year New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman called for space aliens to invade earth so that the government would spend money to mount a defense thereby stimulating the economy. As aliens have yet to comply with Krugman's wishes, he advocated on HBO's Real Time Friday that scientists should get together and lie about an imminent attack to boost federal spending (video…

Bill Maher is either a blithering idiot, a pathological liar, or both. On HBO's Real Time Friday, the factually-challenged financier of Barack Obama actually had the gall to say the President didn't support the recommendations of his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (aka Simpson-Bowles) because - wait for it! - Republicans didn't support it (video follows with…