Economy

Two examples of poor press handling of what initially appeared to be fairly good news about initial unemployment claims last Thursday got lost in the pre-South Carolina primary hubbub. The first and most obvious was in the writeup presented by the Associated Press's Chris Rugaber. In his fourth paragraph, he raised the threshold below which a consistent level of weekly claims might be…

In their attempt to demonize Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the Obama-loving media have been misinforming Americans that venture capitalists are robber barons and corporate raiders preying on failing companies to suck every penny out of them with total disregard for employees. What these ignorant and/or dishonest members of the press are hiding from the electorate is that…

In a delicious example of irony, NPR’s Nina Totenberg on Friday falsely claimed that there were more people on food stamps under George W. Bush than are using the food assistance program today. This marvelously came seconds before she told the panel of PBS’s Inside Washington that “facts don’t matter” to Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (video follows with transcript and…

When his tenure at the investment firm Bain Capital became an issue in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney responded by saying he "was disappointed ... to see one of my opponents attacking free enterprise, just like the president was." It's understandable why Romney would want to see criticism of his resume as an attack on free enterprise. Seventy percent of…

Charlie Rose ripped a new liberal line of attack on Mitt Romney right out of the New York Times on Thursday's CBS This Morning, as he interviewed top Romney backer Chris Christie. Rose played up that Romney "seems to be dancing around the idea of what his wealth is. This is the New York Times today: 'Romney riches are being seen as new hurdle; complex web of assets is difficult to assess.'"…

In denouncing President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline project today, the Washington Post gets it right, but not for the Right's (pun intended) reasons, defending the job-creating project from a liberal position. The Post editorial board argued today that approving the Keystone XL project "should've been an easy call for the administration." "We almost hope this was a political…

Well, isn't this rich? And I do mean rich. President Obama, man of the people, will deliver his presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. — so that Democratic Party fundraisers can reward big donors with skyboxes and other lavish perks. As usual, the White House and its allies are trying to camouflage naked partisan money-grubbing in populist…

In 1998, we learned that Al and Tipper Gore made $353 in deductible charitable contributions against income of $198,000 the previous year. In the decade from 1998-2007, Joe and Jill Biden averaged $369 per year in such reported contributions. Bill and Hillary Clinton were infamous for taking charitable contributions for used underwear. The aforementioned facts are generally not known by…

The more one listens to Newsweek’s Andrew Sullivan, the more one has to conclude that he either knows absolutely nothing about the economy or he’s lying through his teeth. Appearing on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Wednesday evening, Sullivan actually said tax “revenues currently are at 50 year lows” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

In an effort to once again run defense for Barack Obama, NBC's Today co-host Matt Lauer on Wednesday pushed New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to agree that the President's sustained effort to pit economic classes against one another is just a matter of fairness: "Talk to me about that word 'envy.' Because I asked Governor Romney about this last week as well....why is it envy as opposed to…

Yesterday MSNBC's Alex Wagner treated viewers of her noon Eastern Now program to a panel that featured Obama Super PAC staffer Bill Burton. Today the promotion of pro-Obama spin continued with Wagner herself attempting to help DNC chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz spin the Obama/Clinton State Department's decision to scrap the Keystone XL pipeline project. "Is there a concern, though,…

NPR  harped on Mitt Romney's "provocative tax detail" on Wednesday's Morning Edition, highlighting that the GOP presidential candidate "disclosed he's in the same low tax bracket as the billionaire [Warren] Buffett." Correspondent Scott Horsley later used clips from President Obama to accent liberals' class warfare spin about the rich paying a lower tax rate than "millionaires and billionaires…

We'll leave it to others to assess the political fallout from Mitt Romney's statement yesterday that he paid about 15% in federal income taxes.  But let's at least get some facts straight. On Morning Joe today, Joe Scarborough claimed that the revelations about Mitt Romney's taxes might be his Dukakis-in-the-tank moment.  Scarborough repeated the shibboleth Warren Buffett put into…

The Occupy movement's unmasking as the radicals they really are and always have been continues, conveniently almost completely outside the notice of the establishment press. As far as I can tell, only one press report by Erik Olson at the Daily News based in Longview, Washington is reporting, and even then with the use of a very inadequate headline, that Occupy Longview intends to "thwart"…