Personal Finance

"Barack Obama has not put anyone on food stamps."

So hysterically wrote Barbra Streisand at the Huffington Post Friday evening:

Charlie Rose ripped a new liberal line of attack on Mitt Romney right out of the New York Times on Thursday's CBS This Morning, as he interviewed top Romney backer Chris Christie. Rose played up that Romney "seems to be dancing around the idea of what his wealth is. This is the New York Times today: 'Romney riches are being seen as new hurdle; complex web of assets is difficult to assess.'"

Midway through the segment, the anchor held up the copy of left-leaning publication and read the headline for the front page, above-the-fold article by Nicholas Confessore, David Kocieniewski, and Michael Luo. He continued by citing the New Jersey governor's own rebuttal to this class warfare tactic: "Your philosophy seems to be, tell him how much you're worth, and say you're proud of it. Every American wants to be rich."

George Will on Sunday marvelously told liberal economist Robert Reich something that many conservatives have been dying to say for years.

During a fascinating Right vs. Left debate on ABC's This Week, after Reich predictably pined for higher income tax rates to solve all that ails us, Will struck back with the line of the weekend, "You are a pyromaniac in a field of strawmen" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

For conservatives, one of the bright spots of the Occupy Wall Street protests was when millionaire investor Peter Schiff went down to Zuccotti Park with video camera and a sign reading "I Am The 1% - Let's Talk."

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of speaking with Schiff by telephone in a sweeping interview about his experience at OWS, how the financial media are doing, and ending with his rather frightening view of the economy and the future of our nation (video follows with transcript):

While Bob Schieffer spent a goodly amount of time on Sunday's Face the Nation discussing the allegations made against Herman Cain this week as well as Rick Perry's strange speech in New Hampshire, Liz Cheney was the voice of reason asking why he was wasting so much time on these irrelevant issues.

"With all due respect, you know, the American people are out there afraid. They're afraid that the economy is going off a cliff...I think that that's what we ought to be talking about" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The European Union might completely fall apart any day now as the countries in that region implode under their massive debt.

Despite this, CNN's Fareed Zakaria offered another America-hating love letter to the struggling continent Sunday actually claiming, "The American dream seems to be thriving in Europe not at home" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

While the media champion the Occupy Wall Street movement as if it's the American version of the Arab Spring, they're predictably missing a crucial distinction.

As the Motley Fool reported Friday, those sleeping in tents and skipping showers in cities around the country are actually part of the world's richest one percent:

The hyperventilation of media members concerning income inequality in America reaches a new high with each passing day.

Case in point, on Inside Washington Friday, PBS's Mark Shields, with a straight face no less, said this disparity is a "national security issue" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If you listen to Occupy Wall Street-loving media members, you'd think income inequality in America is worse than anywhere else in the world.

Quite the contrary, a chart from World Bank economist Branko Milanovic's book "The Haves and the Have-Nots” paints an entirely different picture:

Just how far are the media willing to go to get Barack Obama reelected?

As conservative author Ann Coulter told Fox News's Sean Hannity Friday evening, "He will have the entire mainstream media bucking for him and they will lie about the economy. 'Oh, it's a turnaround, don't stop him now'" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Politico's "Daily Digest" is an email the blog blasts out in the morning, touting the day's top stories.  As a subscriber, this NewsBuster was struck by the left-friendly lean of five out this morning's six featured stories.

To be sure, "Post-recession income falls" is not good for President Obama, reporting as it does that Americans' incomes have fallen faster during his presidency than they did even in the depths of the recession.  But every other story would surely be welcome at the White House.  Here are the stories, in the order they appear in the email:
 

Barack Obama took a lot of heat last week for saying America has "gotten a little soft."

Not from Fareed Zakaria who when not advising the president on foreign policy acts as one of his propaganda czars every Sunday on CNN (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As young, foolish, unemployed Americans Occupy Wall Street, liberals in the media have predictably cheered the protests.

Some, like schlockumentarian Michael Moore, participated in the goings on, telling the crowd last week that the folks inside the buildings surrounding them were solely responsible for the nation’s economic woes (video follows with transcript and extensive commentary):

ABC's George Stephanopoulos lobbied President Obama Monday to "put a stop" to Bank of America's new service charge for its debit card customers.

"You might have a new issue on your plate," the former Democratic political operative advised the President about the new five dollar monthly debit card fee for Bank of America customers. In the interview which aired on ABCNews.com and Yahoo.com at 2:35 p.m. EDT, Stephanopoulos pulled the question from the audience and beseeched Obama "Can you stop this service charge?"

[Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

If you only read Thursday's coverage of Bank of America's decision to impose a $5 monthly debit card fee by Associated Press Personal Finance Writer Candice Choi, you would have no idea that last year's "Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act" triggered BofA's decision. The legislation gave the Federal Reserve the power to limit debit card interchange fees. The Fed's limit -- 21 cents plus 0.5% of each purchase transaction -- basically cut the banks' fees by about half from their pre-Dodd-Frank level. CardHub.com estimates that the cap will reduce banks' fee income by $9.4 billion annually.

Ms. Choi only cited the existence of "a new rule" in her opening paragraph. She then waited until the ninth paragraph to vaguely cite the existence of "a regulation." It hardly seems accidental that most news consumers who didn't follow the fee fight a year ago will probably have the impression that banks are driving the fee increases, as the following excerpt will demonstrate (bolds are mine):

There are times when I am truly sickened by what I see from the current breed of television anchors and hosts. Today is one of them.

Martin Bashir on the MSNBC program bearing his name finished Wedneday's show with a segment attacking New Jersey governor Chris Christie concluding, "Go home, Mr. Christie. Your state needs you much more than America does" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If it's Sunday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman must be "saying something really stupid or outrageous."

On ABC's "This Week," the Nobel laureate told host Christiane Amanpour, "If Obama called for endorsing motherhood, the Republicans in the House would oppose it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

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):

George Will and Donna Brazile had a telling exchange on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.

After Will listed all the excuses President Obama makes for the poor economy, Brazile said, "I thought you were going to mention media" leading Will to smartly retort, "They're not his problem" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the Obama-loving media have largely been gushing and fawning over the current White House resident taking a vacation on Martha's Vineyard as the economy appears to be heading into a double-dip recession.

Giving an interesting insight into the President's decision to not call Congress back from its summer break to tackle the problems facing the nation was New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd who wrote Sunday:

In the view of the New York Times, everything that ails our nation is caused by Republicans.

Consider Saturday's editorial disgracefully titled "Magical Unrealism: In the Iowa Debate, Republicans Fled From the Truth About the Damage Caused by Their Party":

As NewsBusters reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday took some poorly-researched cheap shots at conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh responded Thursday explaining that this is borne of frustration over the failure of Barack Obama noting, "The Chris Matthewses and the media are very close to the rioters in London in terms of anger, disappointment" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The primary argument conservatives made against presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008 was that he lacked the proper experience and qualifications for the most important job on the planet.

On Tuesday, Huffington Post's Howard Fineman, one of the many liberal media members that helped get the woefully lacking junior senator from Illinois into the White House, said on MSNBC's "Hardball," Obama "should have spent more time on the Chicago Board of Aldermen than at the University of Chicago" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Want to know just how scared of the Tea Party America's media are?

On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page published a column entitled "Is The Tea Party Over?":

The predictable MSM reaction to Standard & Poor's downgrading of the US government's credit rating? Kill the messenger, of course.  Yesterday, we noted how Jeff Glor at CBS' Early Show parroted the Obama line about the downgrade being "political."

Today it was ABC's turn.  Good Morning America had on Mellody Hobson, a regular ABC "financial contributor" and former host of her own ABC financial-advice show. Hobson hit S&P hard, expressing the view that "everything that they do is suspect."

There's just one little factoid ABC didn't share with viewers. While presented as a presumably objective financial expert, Chicagoan Hobson in fact is an Obama partisan.  Hobson served as a big-time fundraiser during Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and is involved with his 2012 campaign.

View video after the jump.

Ever the dutiful Obama shills, the New York Times on Saturday downplayed the seriousness of the announcement by Standard and Poor's that it had downgraded America's debt rating to AA+.

As you read this, imagine how this front page article would have differed if a Republican was in the White House:

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera took a lot of heat this week for writing an article calling Tea Party members "terrorists" wearing "suicide vests."

On Saturday, he apologized:

If the economy stagnates or falters in the coming months, it seems a metaphysical certitude Obama-loving media will do everything in their power to blame it on Tuesday's debt ceiling agreement rather than any of the other factors already in play.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews gave us a foreshadowing of such deception on "Hardball" when he blamed Tuesday's stock market collapse on the newly-signed legislation rather than the bad economic data announced in the morning (video follows with transcript and commentary):