Economy

On MSNBC's Political Nation Friday evening, host Al Sharpton interviewed Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post.  They spoke about House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH): GRIM: So, you`re right, the record that he is amassing is probably one of the most extreme records that a House Speaker has put up in decades. SHARPTON: Well, based on your last statement, he being probably…

As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, a solar company that was given over a half a billion dollars in stimulus funds declared bankruptcy this week. Although most news outlets did at least give this story some coverage, two organizations owned by the same company with intricate ties to the Obama administration completely ignored it.

CNN's Piers Morgan hosted New York Magazine columnist Frank Rich for a conservative-bashing session on Thursday. Morgan took the opportunity to ask his liberal guest if the Tea Party can even govern. "But can they actually govern? Or does the rather intransigent streak that they bring to all that policy-making, is that always going to be the problem?" Morgan asked. Rich responded that the…

Charles Krauthammer on Fox News's "Special Report" Friday offered Republicans a 2012 campaign slogan to defeat Barack Obama. "President Zero: zero economic expansion, zero jobs, zero ideas on how to cure the economy" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said one of those truly memorable lines he comes up with from time to time. Speaking about Barack Obama's decision to give his jobs creation plan before a joint session of Congress next week, Krauthammer told the host of PBS's "Inside Washington," "The same way the Federal Reserve is debasing our real currency he’s debasing the currency of…

If we gave out a prize for the media personality who was the biggest drama queen over the non-scandal regarding the disagreement about when President Obama should address a joint session of Congress, I'd nominate Mediaite's Tommy Christopher, who yesterday insisted that "Speaker John Boehner Should Resign For His Unprecedented Insult to the President":

Republican Congressman Joe Walsh and left-leaning MSNBC anchor Martin Bashir got into a contentious exchange over Barack Obama on Friday. The Congressman bluntly explained to Bashir, "Your profession did not vet [Obama]..."  See video below. MP3 audio here. Bashir became visibly upset as he discussed Walsh's plan to skip the President's jobs speech next Thursday, implying racism as the…

In late July, in a move with some similarities to what yours truly has noted in Wausau, Wis. this week (here, here, and here), the Allegheny County Labor Council of the AFL-CIO in Pittsburgh declined to allow the Steel City's lone Republican candidate for City Council the ability to march in its Labor Day parade. The differences between Wausau and Pittsburgh are that: a) being picky about who…

Speaker John Boehner politely suggesting that President Obama can be accommodated to give an address to a joint session of Congress a day later than the date he originally requested is "contemptuous," "cynical" and "craven" to the New York Times editorial board. In their top editorial headlined, "Oh, Grow Up," the Times childishly whined about Speaker John Boehner's "unprecedented" request.

Give Gene Sperling credit--he managed to keep a straight face. Sent out onto the White House lawn to explain away the horrendous jobs report showing that the economy created no new jobs in August, the director of the White House National Economic Council actually resorted to blaming the economy inherited from George W. Bush, then making the mind-boggling boast that the failed Obama stimulus…

Ahead of the Sept. 2 release of the August jobs report, surveys had indicated the economy had added anywhere from 75,000 to 100,000 jobs that month. But those estimates turned out to be very wrong. Just minutes ahead of the release, CNBC’s Rick Santelli went out on a limb predicting that no jobs had been added in August. Santelli was right about that number. As CNBC reported just minutes…

Somebody better tell incoming MSNBC host Chris Hayes the network giving him his own show later this month doesn't cotton to commentators disrespecting President Obama. On Thursday's "The Last Word," Hayes told host Lawrence O'Donnell the current White House resident can't run his reelection campaign like Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in 1936 because FDR actually had a strong economic record…

Remember "What's The Matter With Kansas?"  That was liberal native Kansan Thomas Frank's extended kvetch over the refusal of average Jayhawkers to engage in class warfare by supporting soak-the-rich policies. The same mindset was on display on Morning Joe today. The Huffington Post's Sam Stein asserted that the failure of many less-than-rich Americans to support tax increases on the rich…

Today, the White House's Office of Management and Budget published its Mid-Session Review (large PDF), an economic forecast projecting, among other things, that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for calendar 2011 will be 1.7%. That doesn't sound like much (and it isn't), but to get there growth will have to almost triple its most recently reported level during the second half of the year. Second-…