AP's Proclamation: 'Democrats Declare Swamp of Corruption Drained

August 3rd, 2010 12:15 PM
The AP's Larry Margasak ran with the Democrats' latest talking point in a Tuesday article which carried the headline, "Democrats Declare Swamp of Corruption Drained." The writer, referring to a line by Nancy Pelosi, explained that the remark "might seem odd, but it's an emerging strategy: Separate Democratic-initiated ethics from the cases of Reps. Charles Rangel...and Maxine Waters."Despite…

Not News at AP: $1 Million Bounty on Sheriff Joe

August 2nd, 2010 2:28 PM
UPDATE, 6:20 p.m. ET: AP now has a 5:28 p.m. item on the bounty. It's enough to make you wonder if the item below shamed the wire service into covering it. (original post) A look at the Associated Press's raw national feed (saved and stored here at about 1:30 p.m. ET for future reference) informs us that the wire service considers the following items worthy of at least some countrywide attention…

AP Covers 'Paperwork Nightmare' Provision in ObamaCare Without Explain

July 31st, 2010 10:27 AM
There's a big "surprise" in the ObamaCare legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the President in late March. Imagine that. This morning, the Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher reported on the status of one of them, namely an IRS-related provision in the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" that has nothing to do with patient protection or providing affordable care. The…

CNBC Reporter: Bush Tax Cuts Only Affected Those Making $250K or More

July 30th, 2010 12:46 AM
CNBC.com's Jeff Cox needs to brush up on his financial history. He believes that George W. Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts affected only the highest-earning taxpayers, i.e., those who gross $250,000 a year of more. He's wrong. Here's part of what Cox posted this morning (erroneous statement is bolded; HT to Mark Levin in his Thursday broadcast): Letting Bush Tax Cuts Die Would Kill Recovery:…

In 'Context': Two June Housing Stats Are Worst For Any June Since Such

July 27th, 2010 1:07 PM
Thanks to Shirley Sherrod, Andrew Breitbart, and the NAACP, political journalists have supposedly discovered the importance of "context" (though they strangely seem to lost interest once fuller context items like this and this became known). It would be helpful if such an interest in full context would legitimately and consistently spread to business reporting. Full context would include looking…

Name That Party: Bell, California Edition

July 25th, 2010 8:46 PM
This is almost too obvious. Many readers may already be familiar with recent exposure of the treasury plunderers disguised as public officials serving up hefty salaries to themselves while allegedly serving their constituents in the LA suburb of Bell, California. Here's some of the latest from the Associated Press, carried at the Los Angeles Times, which broke the original story, for those who…

The Todd-Obama Interview: AP Misquotes Prez, Transcript Omits Referenc

July 18th, 2010 11:41 PM
Geez, can't anybody here play this game? During his visit to Holland, Michigan on Thursday, President Obama spoke with NBC's Chuck Todd. NBC aired the interview on the NBC Nightly News and The Today Show. (On Friday morning, NB's Geoffrey Dickens covered a separate aspect of that interview relating to the recess-appointed Donald Berwick.) In reporting on that interview, the Associated Press…

AP Three Months Late to Story of Cuba's Self-Admitted 1 Million 'Unpro

July 18th, 2010 7:49 PM
It's not a stretch to believe that the folks at the Associated Press would rather not report bad news from that communist workers' paradise known as Cuba. Just look at how the wire service has dealt with clearly significant news about the island nation's economy. Though the news, carried originally at the Miami Herald, is three months old, the AP as best I can tell finally got around to writing…

AP Whitewashes 'Group' Calling SC Murder a Hate Crime

July 17th, 2010 11:35 AM
The Associated Press is among many news organizations which have been ignoring the now-sworn testimony of J. Christian Adams, the whistleblowing lawyer who first asserted almost three weeks ago that there is "profound hostility by the Obama Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department towards a race-neutral enforcement of civil rights laws." Adams resigned from the DOJ after the following…

Heads, Obama Wins; Tails, Bush Loses: AP's Inconsistent 'Recession' De

July 16th, 2010 11:56 PM
There are two different ways of defining a recession. The Associated Press is using one of them to define its beginning, and the other to define its end. Using the former makes George Bush look bad; using the latter makes Barack Obama look good. Imagine that. The traditional definition of "recession," which is used as the official metric in the vast majority of countries around the world, is…

AP Misses Real Eye-Opener in Obama NBC Interview; Obama Claims He 'Got

July 16th, 2010 11:59 AM
UPDATE, JULY 18: This post was based in an Associated Press's quote of a statement President Obama made to NBC News that "my policies ... got us out of this mess." Subsequent review of the video and transcript of that interview shows that the President really said "my policies ... are getting us out of this mess." I have prepared a follow-up post dealing with this matter and a separate…

Federal Tax Collections Have Not Increased; Interest From the Fed is t

July 15th, 2010 11:59 PM
It's bad enough the federal government's official budget deficit has topped $1 trillion for the second year in a row, according to the just-released June 2010 Monthly Treasury Statement. But, focusing only on receipts for the moment, a closer look makes it obvious that the situation is even worse than it appears. Don't expect the establishment press to take any interest in the annoying but…

Killer of Five Children Executed in Ohio; AP Story Allows Half-Truths

July 14th, 2010 12:15 PM
In October 2007, I put up a BizzyBlog post (also cross-posted at the Cleveland Plain Dealer's short-lived Wide Open Blog) about William Garner (pictured at right), the Ohio man who killed five children (three of them and the lone survivor also pictured at right) to cover up a burglary in 1992. At the time, it appeared that Garner's date with the executioner had been indefinitely called off, for…

AP Video 'Expert': Being Here 'Without Documentation' Isn't a Crime

July 12th, 2010 3:02 PM
One reason to hope that the Big 3 networks continue to muddle through their awful evening news ratings and somehow hang around is that there's an alternative out there that would be much worse. If any of the networks ever considered outsourcing their nightly newscasts to the Associated Press, the likely result could be bad enough to make some long for the (relatively) good old days of Brian,…