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Update, June 20, 12:30 p.m.: Revised to reflect another AP math error not caught the first time around.

Update 2, June 20, 3:20 p.m.: The AP has issued a correction indicating that lost sales taxes are $23 billion and teachers' salaries which could be paid are 460,000. The contradiction explained below about California's claim that it is failing to collect only $200 million (less than 1% of the total, in a state with 12% of the nation's population) is unexplained. The post's text has been revised to reflect AP's correction. AP has NOT corrected its original story here or here.

What is it with Associated Press reporters and basic math?

Earlier this evening, I noted how the wire service's Scott Bauer failed to correctly state the nature of the pension costs many of Wisconsin's unionized workers will have to pay; he said they would have to pay "5.8% of their pension costs," when it's really "5.8% of the gross pay into the state's retirement fund.

Yesterday, the AP's Chris Tomlinson, in reporting on states' desperate attempt to force online vendors to collect sales tax on their behalf, contributed a couple more math and conceptual errors of his own:

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, some liberal media outlets were spreading the idea that a Barack Obama impersonator was pulled off the stage at a Republican event this weekend because he was telling racial and gay jokes.

Although CNN's Howard Kurtz at least figured out that the real reason Reggie Brown was yanked was because he was starting to insult Republicans, the "Reliable Sources" host seemed shocked Republicans would rather hear jokes about Obama than about Republicans (video follows with transcript and commentary):

One might expect the reader’s advocate at a major newspaper to have some respect for the readers. Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton thinks anyone who complains about “crowdsourcing” Sarah Palin’s e-mails is ridiculous. With copy as spiky as his white hair, he began his Sunday column with a swipe:

If you read the mail to the ombudsman last week, you would think The Post organized a vigilante mob to burn Sarah Palin at the stake. That interpretation is complete balderdash.

The sour grapes were incredibly sour on the Thom Hartmann radio show on Thursday when they led off with the news that Anthony Weiner was resigning. Broadcasting live from the Netroots Nation hootenanny in Minneapolis, Hartmann went right from an admitted sex scandal to an unproven old story from last November in the National Enquirer:

Looks like Anthony Weiner’s about to step down. John Boehner’s involved in a major sex scandal. It’s all over the page of the National Enquirer. Two different women, they’re naming the women. So this is this is shades of the John Edwards revisit.

NBC on Sunday decided to cut the words "under God" from the reading of the Pledge of Allegiance that accompanied the beginning of its coverage of the U.S. Open Golf Championship.

In fact, this happened twice during the show's introduction (video follows courtesy Mark Finkelstein with partial transcript):

After months of being asked, Jon Stewart finally appeared on "Fox News Sunday" this weekend.

The primary discussion point was bias in the media which the "Daily Show" host continually told Chris Wallace is far more prevalent on FNC than at all the other news organizations (video follows with transcript and commentary):