Economy

UPDATE: Scarborough Responds--Don't Twist My Criticism of Newt Into Support For Obama In response to an inquiry from this NewsBuster, Joe Scarborough has made clear that he strongly opposes President Obama's "disastrous" record, urging people not to twist his criticism of Gingrich into support for Obama.  Full Scarborough statement after the jump…

On Monday's NBC Rock Center, host Brian Williams took time to update viewers on the latest political news, "And if you want to guess how dirty this campaign will be, listen to this Romney ad....Romney's spokesperson said they're not going to take their foot off the gas." Williams played a clip of President Obama from the ad: "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." He…

Liberal theologian Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite has often used her perch on Washington Post's "On Faith" section to pound the pulpit for liberal economic ideas twisting Christian Scripture to support her views and, by extension, implicitly condemn as heresy dissenting ones. Monday's blog post "Forgive us our student loan debt" was no exception as the Center for American Progress senior fellow…

On Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer interviewed Obama advisor David Plouffe and promoted liberal concerns that the administration had not pushed enough government economic programs: "Even the Democratic Mayor of Scranton, Christopher Dougherty, says that he'd hoped for more federal help under this Democratic administration, and it hasn't come." Lauer further detailed Dougherty's…

Bill Keller, former executive editor of the New York Times, devoted his oversized every-other-Monday column to a snobby and elitist assault on an old foe – the dangers of internet commentary, mostly of the right-wing variety, on the state of economic debate: “The Politics of Economics in the Age of Shouting.” Keller recently took a crash course in economics via airplane and bedside reading…

MSNBC's faux conservative Joe Scarborough dismissed the conservative credentials of Republican front-runners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney while promoting Jon Huntsman – the GOP darling of liberals like Jimmy Carter. Scarborough's Politico op-ed ripped Gingrich and Romney for flip-flopping on issues like abortion and global warming. He strangely ignored the time where Huntsman, MSNBC's…

Anyone who made the easy prediction that the Associated Press would fail to bring up Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac in its fawning tribute to Barney Frank after his retirement announcement yesterday was correct. Anyone making the easy prediction that the AP would lionize him as a "gay pioneer" was also spot-on. Also predictably, the wire service's Bob Salsberg and David Espo failed to mention that…

With penetrating political analysis like this, no wonder Ed Schultz has been named one of the least influential people alive . . . On his MSNBC show this evening, discussing the recall effort in Wisconsin, Schultz said that Republican Governor Scott Walker "sucks." Video after the jump.

This morning, the Census Bureau told us that 25,000 new homes were sold in October, which, after seasonal adjustment, works out to an annual rate of 307,000. This was up from a seasonally adjusted and downwardly revised (from 313,000) 303,000 in September. According to the first sentence of Derek Kravitz's related report at the Associated Press, this constitutes a "hopeful sign," even though…

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Monday perfectly demonstrated that he is willing to contentiously debate issues with conservative guests without regard for the truth. In the middle of a Hardball segment about the Democrat proposal to extend the payroll tax holiday, Matthews ignorantly accused the far more knowledgeable Ron Christie of "complicating" the discussion leading his guest to marvelously…

The Big Three network morning shows on Monday all reported on the possible showdown between Occupy L.A. protesters and the LAPD. NBC's Today and CBS's Early Show highlighted that the left-leaning demonstrators held a "block party" as they defied law enforcement. All three media outlets also played up the supposedly "peaceful" nature of the protest, while ignoring other media reports of violence…

In an interview with Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, host David Gregory dismissed concerns that raising taxes could harm the economy: "But the notion that tax cuts or tax increases somehow impact economic growth, we know historically that's simply not the case....Isn't that one of the falsehoods that's peddled in Washington?" [Audio…

Reporting on Monday morning that Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was not seeking re-election, CNN's political team whitewashed his controversial tenure in office with some fond words like "titan," "larger-than-life," and "teacher at heart." CNN's Joe Johns lauded Frank's skills as a teacher -- especially as the first openly-gay congressman. "He's taught this country so much about the gay…

With the Super Committee failure last week, lawmakers are considering going back to previous debt proposals proposed over the past year. The three main plans are President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's 10-year, $4 trillion plan, Rep. Paul Ryan's 10-year, $6 trillion plan, and the Gang of Six 10-year, $4 trillion plan. Do you think any of the previously…