Stock Market

Following a report on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News about the dropping value of Facebook's initial public stock offering and possible investigations into what went wrong, anchor Brian Williams saw an opportunity to adopt the talking points of the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement: "Is this a case of the rich get richer, another advantage to the 1%...?"

Williams posed that question to New York Times reporter and CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin, who enthusiastically added to the class warfare rhetoric: "Boy does it feel that way, Brian. This is that and probably a lot more. And it couldn't come at a worse time given the enormous distrust that the public has of Wall Street. And it goes to this sense of fairness. This is the ultimate 1% versus 99% all over again."

I have a serious question for MSNBC's Chris Matthews: How many lies are you willing to tell on national television to get Barack Obama reelected?

On Friday's Hardball, the host gave viewers a plethora of falsehoods and half-truths to giving us an idea of just how far he's prepared to go this election cycle to make sure the objection of his affection remains in the White House (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Psycho-capitalism? The overwhelmingly liberal readership of the New York Times is predictably eating up a charged story in the increasingly pretentious and hard-left Sunday Review section, "Capitalists And Other Psychopaths," by left-wing essayist William Deresiewicz, a critic who often writes for The Nation. Bringing the article to life is a cartoon of two men with painted smiles torturing ants with a magnifying glass. The text box: "Rich people are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law. No surprise."

As of Monday afternoon it was the paper's second-most read and e-mailed story (behind a more substantive Times magazine cover story on diagnosing children as psychopaths), as liberal readers ironically used tools honed and perfected by capitalists to spread a tale -- published by a capitalist organization, the New York Times Company, with revenues of $2.3 billion in 2011 -- of the utter wickedness of capitalists.

Monday's CBS This Morning brought on former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich to brush off the effect of French socialist Francois Hollande's election on the world economy, despite the immediate decline in global stock markets: "I don't think there's really much danger." Anchor Erica Hill had asked the pundit if there was "a danger in throwing off the French economy and the ripple effect that could have."

Charlie Rose identified Reich as merely a "former labor secretary" and omitted mentioning his former Clinton administration role, along with his left-of-center ideology. The morning show also let the economist appear solo, without bringing on a conservative to appear opposite him during the segment.

There may be no more pompous and conceited person on the airwaves today than CNN contributor Paul Begala.

Appearing on Erin Burnett OutFront Tuesday, the former Clinton adviser actually said, "I put together a federal budget that was balanced, and it created the greatest boom in American history and global history" (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

On CNBC's Behind the Money blog on Wednesday, Fast Money executive producer John Melloy promoted a left-leaning theory as to why the stock market has been on the rise lately: "While President Obama may not be Wall Street's ideal candidate, stock prices are rising on growing expectations he will be re-elected this November."

Melloy pointed to long-term political certainty as a reason for investor optimism and added: "The surge in President Obama's chances at a second term also have coincided with a string of better-than-expected domestic economic data this year, including an all-important drop in the unemployment rate."

While ABC's World News declared  "a big chunk of the pain at the pump is Wall Street's fault" on Thursday, on NBC's Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams similarly announced: "The problem is gas prices are largely set by commodities traders, also known these days as speculators."

Correspondent Miguel Almaguer reported on "backlash from both sides of the register" as a sound bite played of Los Angeles gas station owner Andre Van Der Valk ranting: "Consumers should be very, very angry and very challenging of the oil companies. That's where it all starts."

On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose promoted a talking point used by liberals, including President Obama, that Warren Buffett and other billionaires want their taxes raised. After playing a clip of Chris Christie ripping Buffett, Rose asked Jack Welch, "Do you agree with the governor of New Jersey, or do you agree with...Buffett, that there ought to be more tax on the super-rich?"

When Welch replied, "I don't feel under-taxed in any way at all," Rose insisted that "most of the people that are in your economic bracket tell me they're prepared to pay more taxes if, in fact, they could be sure where the money was going."

Since the first Occupy Wall Street protest, you haven't been able to swing a dead cat in this country without hitting an Obama-loving media member carping and whining about income inequality.

Yet according to this chart created by the nation's largest federation of trade unions the AFL-CIO, the difference between average CEO and average worker pay has been plummeting since the year 2000:

After the news portion of a "Warmer Weather Hurting Retail" segment on the impact of the mild winter on retail sales thus far appearing early this morning on CNBC, Joe Kernen and John Harwood got into it over the relevance and influence of so-called "global warming" (I guess Harwood didn't get the memo that it's "climate change" now).

Picking up at the 2:10 mark of the video:

There was an astonishingly revealing moment on Sunday's 60 Minutes when President Obama said, "Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn't illegal."

For what should be obvious reasons, CBS's Steve Kroft didn't bother asking his guest who created, voted for or signed the pieces of legislation that allowed this "damaging behavior on Wall Street" to be legal (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Last month, NewsBusters reported 60 Minutes cherry-picking Peter Schweizer's book about Congressional insider trading to make it appear the problem was largely a Republican one.

Schweizer did a phone interview with NewsBusters last week to discuss this matter in greater detail including how with the exception of Fox News, despite this being a bipartisan issue, the media have largely ignored it to protect liberal politicians they revere (video follows with transcript):

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):

If it's Saturday, I must be pointing out more simply stunning stupidity coming from the mouth of Bill Maher.

Never letting me down, the host of HBO's Real Time Friday said the financial crisis was caused by "something new in politics where Wall Street was sort of betting on things to fail as opposed to for things to succeed" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Tuesday, the morning shows of the Big Three networks omitted the party affiliation of Jon Corzine as they reported on the federal investigation into his brokerage firm, something that even the liberal New York Times gave in their coverage of the story. ABC's Good Morning America also failed to include Corzine's name during their news brief on the investigation.

News anchor Josh Elliott noted in a 13-second brief that "a Wall Street brokerage firm run by New Jersey's former governor is filing for bankruptcy. Regulators say some $700 million belonging to MF Global's customers is apparently missing." Apparently, the name of the Democrat's firm is newsworthy at ABC, but his name and his party ID isn't.

Occupy Wall Street isn’t just seizing city squares or the Brooklyn Bridge. The socialist/communist/anarchist revolutionary movement has also seized an incredible amount of coverage from the adoring media.

In the nation’s two most well-known liberal newspapers – The New York Times and Washington Post – the amount of space devoted to Occupy Wall Street has taken on epic proportions. In the nearly six weeks since the Sept. 17 launch of the left-wing movement, the two papers have written a book-load of stories mentioning OWS totalling more than 180,000 words. That comes to 224 stories and opinion pieces, not counting letters to the editor.

Trust him--he might be young, but he's a "professional sociologist."  So did Harrison Schultz, an organizer of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, describe himself to Al Sharpton on MSNBC this evening.  And he wants Al and us to know that "a lot of the people that are here are in fact anarchists, are in fact revolutionaries.  . . . We don't really want to fix [the problems]. It's revolution, not reform."

There are also some amusing factoids about Harrison.  When he's not out fomenting revolution, Schultz is an . . . analyst for a marketing firm. Oh yeah, and in his oh-so-bourgeois LinkedIn profile, Harrison wants people to know he worked at Bank of America providing "assistance for several investment bankers." Oh, the horror! Video after the jump.

Jim Cramer, a Democrat and Wall Street insider, made a statement on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Friday morning that most definitely turned heads in the White House.

Speaking about the disappointing data released by the Conference Board, Cramer said that traders hate President Obama "like Jimmy Carter was hated" because they believe he's "destroying this country" (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):

It often amazes that liberals in this country revere New York Times columnist Paul Krugman as being an expert economist.

Take for example Friday's intellectually challenged piece entitled "Bernanke's Perry Problem" in which the Nobel laureate accused prominent Republicans such as the Texas governor and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan of preventing the Federal Reserve chairman from enacting monetary policy that would save the economy:

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:

Stock markets around the world are once again imploding in fear of a global double-dip recession.

Appearing on PBS's "Inside Washington" Friday, NPR's Nina Totenberg said Barack Obama can cure what ails us with "a lot of very populist rhetoric" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Unemployment is at 9.1 percent, housing and stock prices are plummeting, national debt is exploding, and Medicare is going bankrupt.

Yet MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews' greatest fear is a president that doesn't believe in evolution or climate change (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the Obama-loving media are working overtime examining the records of every GOP candidate for president.

"The bright side though is," conservative author Ann Coulter told Fox News's Sean Hannity Wednesday, "we don't end up with a Republican president who is suddenly having an affair with an intern, or a Republican president who votes present for his entire term as the economy falls into the toilet" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Liberals need to grow up and stop criticizing President Obama.

So said Fareed Zakaria Sunday on the CNN program bearing his name (video follows with transcript and commentary):