ABC Highlights Victims of Obama's Budget Plan, CBS Touts New Spending
The three nightly news broadcasts on Monday touted Barack Obama new spending as "investments," highlighted victims of White House cuts and ignored key facts about the President's 2012 budget.
Evening News reporter Chip Reid used the preferred White House language, asserting, "But the President unveiled his budget at a technology school to highlight new investments, especially in education…
WaPo, Boston Globe, Others Laughably Trumpet Obama Budget's 'Deep' Cut
With the unveiling of Obama's 2012 budget today, some newspapers around the country framed the $3.7 trillion proposal as a serious attempt to slash the federal deficit.
The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Daily Herald, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the DC Express, couched the administration's massive budget as a fiscally responsible plan that makes "deep" and "big" cuts to "rein in…
WaPo Hails Obama Budget Blueprint, Slams GOP Plan as 'Drastic' and 'Pa
"Obama budget makes deep cuts, cautious trades," blared the February 15 print edition headline for Washington Post staffer Lori Montgomery's page A1 story on President Obama's 2012 budget plan. "[The] Focus [is]on education, energy and research," a subheadline approvingly added.
In the lead paragraph, Montgomery hailed Obama's spending blueprint as "full of surgical cuts and cautious trade-…
ABC News Frets Over PBS Cuts: 'Big Bird on the Chopping Block
The ABCNews.com website on Tuesday used the Sesame Street character Big Bird to worry about potential Republican cuts to PBS. Next to a picture of the forlorn puppet and some concerned children, a graphic alerted, "Big Bird on the Chopping Block?"
The article, by Huma Khan, discussed the efforts by the House GOP to cut of funding to PBS, but didn't feature a single quote from any such…
Stephanopoulos Blames Budget Deficit On Bush
On Monday, President Obama announced that 2011's budget deficit is going to be an all-time high $1.65 trillion.
In an interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly later in the day, ABC's George Stephanopoulos predictably blamed the red ink on former President George W. Bush (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Paul Krugman Ironically Asks 'How Can Voters Be So Ill Informed
In his lifetime, Princeton economics professor and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman has published 20 books, over 200 papers, and since the year 2000 two columns a week at the New York Times.
Clearly without understanding the irony of his question, the man once accused by the Gray Lady's ombudsman of possessing a "disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers" asked his…
Looking Back at Recent Federal Spending, AP's Andrew Taylor Only Count
It's going to be a long year for those of us who review Associated Press reports Uncle Sam's finances for evidence of bias and ignorance. Sometimes it seems that it would be easier to highlight the rare examples of fairness and balance.
Take the first sentence of Andrew Taylor's report on President Obama's 2012 budget (please; that goes for his report and the budget). It, in combination with…
Only ABC Hits Obama on Lack of Substantial Cuts in New Budget; NBC, CB
Of the three morning shows on Monday, only ABC's Good Morning America aggressively pushed the Obama administration on a lack of substantial cuts in the 2012 budget. NBC's Today and CBS's Early Show either downplayed the issue or didn't fully explain the President's new spending.
ABC's Jake Tapper declared that Obama's plan "shows that the President will not take the lead in any aggressive…
History Channel Bizarrely Credits 1980s Economic Recovery to the 'Reag
According to a new History Channel special on Ronald Reagan, the profound economic recovery of the early '80s can be credited to "the Reagan tax increases." The February 9 program contained this odd assertion while highlighting the President's path to reelection in 1984. Of course, the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 actually cut the top marginal rate from 70 percent to 50 percent.
Despite…
Red Ink Since Dems Took Over Congress Greater Than All Previous Defici
The 2011 budget shortfall, which is the responsibility of the previous Congress, is now projected to be $1.65 trillion.
If accurate, this means that since the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, we have posted over $5 trillion in deficits.
Funny With Numbers: AP's Crutsinger Minimizes Federal Spending Level
Sadly, one could write a term paper identifying and correcting the clever misstatements and obfuscations contained in Martin Crutsinger's Sunday report (since updated; original is still present here) for the Associated Press on the impending submission of the President's 2012 budget by the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
Lacking such space, I'll concentrate on what I believe…
Krugman: 'GOP Wants to Build Bridge to 19th Century' - By Trying to Pr
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey said Monday that MSNBC's Chris Matthews is slipping out of touch with reality.
After reading New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's idiotic piece Friday, I think the same can be said of him:
Ratigan Unhinged: GOP's 'Moronically Small' Cuts 'Truly a Flea on a Do
Civility was in short supply yesterday on "The Dylan Ratigan Show," as the MSNBC anchor after which the show is named used words and phrases such as "moronic" and "dog's ass" to demagogue the GOP's proposal to trim the federal budget.
"How can you be serious about cutting spending when your spending proposals are truly a flea on a dog's ass?" howled Ratigan, who went on to demonize…
FDA: A Killer Agency
Sam Kazman's "Drug Approvals and Deadly Delays" article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (Winter 2010), tells a story about how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's policies have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. Let's look at how it happens.
During the FDA's drug approval process, it confronts the possibility of two errors. If the FDA approves a drug…
