Labor Department's Negative 2010 Consumer Spending Report: AP Misses

What if I told you that the government put out a report today which would lead one to infer that the economy might barely have grown last year, and that it even may have contracted -- and that the reporter who appears to have been the only one who covered it didn't grasp its potential significance (or, conceivably, chose to ignore it)? Today the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor…

AP Delays Dedicating a Story to Cain's Fla. Victory Until 'Today' Puts

Herman Cain's victory in Saturday's GOP straw poll in Florida didn't become headline news at the Associated Press until after the candidate's Monday morning "Today Show" interview. Earlier today at NewsBusters, Kyle Drennen noted how "Today's" Ann Curry tried to frame the result as some kind of "protest vote." Having delayed dedicating a story to Cain's victory for roughly 36 hours, the…

Abbas UN 'Ethnic Cleansing' Accusation, Refusal to Recognize Israel Ab

Friday at the UN (text here), Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of engaging in "ethnic cleansing." Earlier, in a speech to 200 supposed "senior representatives of the Palestinian community in the U.S." (would that include Gaza flotilla organizers and Barack Obama pals Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn? Just askin'), Abbas declared, as relayed by Ynetnews.com, that "…

As Its Execs Say They'll Take the Fifth, AP Calls Solyndra an 'Embarra

Let's note the likely reason why what Julia Seymour observed earlier today is the case -- namely, that network news reports have taken to calling the Solyndra situation an "embarrassment." The use of that term probably dates back to September 16, which is as far as I can tell the first time the Associated Press filed a beyond-perfunctory report about now-bankrupt Solyndra, the beneficiary of…

At AP, It's 'LightWhat

So I figure that I need to catch up on the LightSquared saga. This is the company which, as Fox News reported on Thursday (the URL date is September 15, though the time stamp is the next day) is building "a nationwide, next-generation, 4G phone network." The problem is, as Fox further noted, that there are concerns that "many, including (General William) Shelton, think (the network) would…

WaPo 'Lunchline' Email: 'Abortion Rights Supporters... Dealt a Major B

Update (15:30 EDT): Yates notes our criticism on Facebook (see screen capture at bottom of post) In today's "Lunchline" -- a free Washington Post e-mail newsletter with teasers and links to stories in the day's paper and on the website -- staffer Clinton Yates linked to Anita Kumar's story on Virginia's Board of Health adopting new regulations on the state's abortion clinics. Yates's tease…

Brooke Shields, Kelo, and Left-Wing Chauvinism

This was going to be a relatively quick post about the good news, as announced by the Castle Coalition in a Tuesday press release after being teased a few days earlier by "Little Pink House" author Jeff Benedict, that a Lifetime Channel movie is going to be made about the Kelo vs. New London eminent domain drama. Then along came "culture blogger" Alyssa Rosenberg over at the hard-left…

Yahoo's Headline Implies GOP Debate Audience Wanted Uninsured to Die

Rachel Rose Hartman's Tuesday item for Yahoo! News's "The Ticket" blog carried a misleading headline ("Audience at tea party debate cheers leaving uninsured to die") implying that the majority, if not all, of the audience at Monday's GOP presidential debate thought that the critically injured who are uninsured should be left to die. In reality, only a handful cheered and/or laughed in response…

Conservative Woman-hating Tina Brown Launches 'Women in the World Foun

Daily Beast/Newsweek editor-in-chief Tina Brown today announced the launch of the new Women in the World Foundation, which holds itself out as "a powerful, new initiative dedicated to highlighting and driving solutions for advancing women and girls" that "will serve as a resource to all who seek to learn about and engage on the issues facing women and girls." Sounds like a worthwhile venture…

Christianity Today Catches Up with Heather Mercer 10 Years After Captu

A month before the 9/11 attacks, American missionaries Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry were captured and imprisoned by the Taliban. Their detention and subsequent rescue by American troops in November 2001 received extensive media coverage at the time, including criticism by "Dateline" correspondent John Larson about their proselytizing in a Muslim country. So far, however, it seems no…

Biden's 'Barbarians' Blast Barely a Media Blip

Yesterday, at organized labor's traditional Labor Day picnic at Cincinnati's Coney Island amusement park, Vice President Joe Biden gave the keynote address. His key lines, as reported by Carl Weiser at the Cincinnati Enquirer's Politics Extra blog (video is here at MRC-TV): "... this is a different kind of fight. This is a fight for the heart and soul of the labor movement. This is a fight for…

Hoffa Before Obama at Detroit Labor Day Rally: 'Let’s Take These Son

That civility thing which Democrats and the Left thought to be all-important earlier this year is sooooo January. Unless it changes its stripes overnight, the incivility and hostility on display today in Detroit, which hasn't been seen much in establishment press reports to this point, won't appear on the Big 3 Networks' morning shows tomorrow. The American people really need to see what has…

Labor Secretary Solis Again Politicizes Labor Day With an Error-Riddle

A year ago (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), yours truly wrote up how Labor Secretary Hilda Solis had produced a Labor Day video which was both a propaganda vehicle glorifying the Obama administration's alleged economic accomplishments and a straw-man attack piece targeting "some who will suggest that, when times are tough, it’s time to get tough on working people." This year, she's done it…

AP's Peoples Reports 'At Least One' Audience 'Angry Shout' at NH Perry

According to the Associated Press's Steve Peoples in a Saturday evening report, presidential candidate Rick Perry, speaking at a private reception in New Hampshire (which begs the question of whether Peoples was even there), told those attending: "I don't support a fence on the border." Then, again according to Peoples, "The answer produced an angry shout from at least one audience member." "…