Politico

It's been over a week since the Michael Bastasch at the Daily Caller exposed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's use of alias email accounts to conduct official business. A Monday evening Investor's Business Daily editorial noted that this practice is more than likely illegal, because "Federal law prohibits the government from using private emails for official communications unless they are appropriately stored and can be tracked" -- something which can hardly be done if non-flagged Jackson accounts are under names like "Richard Windsor."

Despite the obvious journalistic hot buttons of government secrecy and stonewalling (the Competitive Enterprise Institute has been trying through freedom of information requests since May and a lawsuit filed a few months later to get the EPA to reveal the contensts of "certain correspondence on the secondary email account assigned to" Ms. Jackson), establishment press coverage has been virtually non-existent.

On November 14, the Hill reported that "Senate Democrats, feeling confident from their net gain of two seats in last week’s election, say any deficit-reduction package negotiated in the coming weeks must include stimulus measures." Alexander Bolton's writeup quoted Senator Chuck Schumer publicly asserting that "We have to do something because the economy is not growing fast enough in the first year or two." Although Schumer was referring to 2013 and 2014, the "not growing fast enough" characterization fits the U.S. economy under President Barack Obama's and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's "stimulus"-oriented policies ever since the recession officially ended in June 2009.

The fact that Democrats insist on more so-called "pump-priming" after four years of trillion dollar-plus deficits accompanied by tepid growth, thereby increasing the chances that the deficit streak will hit five years or more, even with tax hikes, while growth remains anemic, is something one might consider to be, well, news. But apparently not at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, or the Politico.

The liberal media cheerleading for United Nations ambassador Susan Rice to become Secretary of State despite her repeated claims that September's attack on our consulate in Libya were a reaction to an anti-Muslim video are becoming nauseating.

On PBS's Inside Washington Friday, Politico's Roger Simon actually said, "John McCain named Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat away from the presidency but he won’t vote for Susan Rice ’cause he can’t trust her. That’s absurd" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Yesterday, AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka may have broken a modern record for chutzpah exhibited by a labor leader Friday in criticizing management's decision at bankrupt snack maker Hostess Brands to liquidate in the wake of irreconcilable issues with its unions. In a Friday afternoon report at Politico, Kevin Cirilli not only let Trumka get away with it; he also lent the labor leader's contentions additional misleading support.

Trumka blamed the company's apparently imminent demise on "Bain-style Wall Street vultures." He wants everyone to believe that it's greedy, eeeevil Republican private-equity types who are on the brink of putting yet another company out of business. The "clever" framing of that quoted phrase appears to indicate that Trumka already knew better. It seems very likely that Cirilli also knew better. Three hours before the initial time stamp of Cirilli's report, Zero Hedge re-exposed the heavy involvement of D-D-D-Democrats in Hostess's management and advisors originally documented way back in july at CNNMoney by David Kaplan (additional paragraph breaks added by me; bolds are mine throughout this post):

As the discussions about sex and sex scandals dominate the media due to the Petraeus affair, one affair the media are strangely silent about is that of New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, who was handily reelected last week despite shocking allegations that his idea of an Easter vacation was flying to the Dominican Republican to soliciting sex from prostitutes. Oh, and, like Secret Service agents in Colombia before him, the hookers are saying that he stiffed them on the tab.

The latest development in the Menendez saga, according to Scott Wong at Politico is that:

Unless today is a total surprise and runs contrary to most of what we've seen during the past four years, President Obama will go through another "news conference" without a great deal of difficult or aggressive questioning from the assembled press corps.

Carrie Budoff Brown and Josh Gerstein at the Politico seem to think otherwise, and have produced a lame list of seven questions they think Obama will be asked -- so lame that one of them has to do with recently passed marijuana-legalizing initiatives in the states of Washington and Colorado:

Suddenly discovering something that anyone with eyes could see before the election, Josh Gerstein at Politico tells us that "Obama's foreign policy team hits turbulence."

Please. For over a week after September 11, the administration was pretending that a video which wasn't relevant at all caused protests which never occurred were what supposedly led to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya which killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. We had different people in the administration taking blame (but not really), and learned that but for the heroics of two of the men who died, dozens of others might have perished. But only now is Gerstein discovering "turbulence." Read on for a narrative which would be funny if it were not so sadly symptomatic of a see-no-evil press corps:

With all the gloating the liberal media has been doing since the election, one would think the margin of victory was comparable to that of Ronald Reagan's overwhelming win over Walter Mondale in 1984. From The Atlantic to Politico and various other outlets, there have been an abundance of columns published in the past week urging, as they always do after a rout at the polls, that the GOP must evolve to the left on key issues.

The underlying themes have all been indistinguishable, almost as if they are collaborating with one another. The Republican party is in trouble, and anyone who refuses to accept the reality of this is delusional, they insist. If you can't beat the Democrats at this point, join them wails the chorus of liberal writers -- or at least impose the Fairness Doctrine to get the ball rolling.

As of shortly before 1 p.m. ET, at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, there is no story about what the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday evening about just-reelected Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., namely that he " is in the midst of plea discussions with the feds probing his alleged misuse of campaign funds." There is also no story on the home page at Politico.

Selected paragraphs from Michael Sneed's Sun-Times report follow the jump (bolds are mine):

As voters cast their ballots to decide the future direction of the country, President Obama encouraged people to go our and vote – and bring their ID’s along with them.  I guess the ship has sailed on Al Sharpton’s bridge he intended to sell to us.  We have the President of the United States and the leader of the Democratic Party telling voters to bring their IDs to the polls.  This is the seat of irony since the president's own attorney general equated Voter ID laws to a new poll tax and called them an affront to minority voters.

Whether Mitt Romney becomes the 45th president or not, Politico's Jonathan Martin insists that the Republican Party is on the verge of a looming crisis. Sticking with the same overgeneralized racist narrative, it is basically a 'fact' at this point that the GOP's conservative ideology and a lack of diversity will ultimately lead to its downfall.

Conversely, the Democratic Party is poised to dominate in future elections. Nevermind that we heard this before in 2006 and 2008, with Clinton acolyte James Carville forecasted 40 years in the wilderness for the GOP. No, Martin insists that demography is destiny, and the GOP is bound to shrivel electorally as older white conservatives die off the voting rolls:

Though it occupies four web pages, it's hard to avoid thinking that Alex Isenstadt at Politico is hoping news consumers only look at his story's headline ("Democrats' drive to retake House falters") and not its damning yet still woefully incomplete content.

The headline would make you think that Dems will gain seats, but not enough to achieve a majority. Isenstadt bravely concludes early on that "Democrats are expected to pick up five seats at best ... (and) might even lose ground and drop one or two seats to the Republican majority. But the rest of his writeup virtually screams "double-digit losses," and fails in several respects to properly assign blame for what appears to be an impending Democratic Party debacle (bolds are mine):

In a way, you have to admire Politico for its dedication to dopey storylines that are thin on evidence but dutifully crafted to boost liberal Democrats. Take this Thursday afternoon post by David Rogers entitled "Can Kerrey Republicans lift him to a win?", playing off the term "Reagan Democrats" and referring to GOP voters in Nebraska who could return Bob Kerrey (D) -- lifetime ACU conservative score of just 8 out of a possible 100 -- to the Senate after a 12-year hiatus in the private sector, nine of which were filled as the president of The New School in New York City.

But in his 14-paragraph story, reporter David Rogers failed to find document any regular Joe Republicans in Nebraska who planned on voting for Kerrey who could explain their rationale, nor did he point to any polling data showing a significant defection of conservative Republicans to the Kerrey column. Instead, Rogers cited some moderate-to-liberal ex-Republican senators who have had kind words for Kerrey, while also touting as potentially decisive former senator Chuck Hagel's decision to officially endorse the Democrat:

The mainstream media are attempting to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that Hurricane Sandy has saved Barack Obama's re-election chances.

On MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday, Politico's Mike Allen said, "You're already hearing Republicans hint that if Mitt Romney loses, that he'll blame the storm" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Toledo Blade reporter Tyrel Linkhorn got sucked in by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne's misleading email to Chrysler employees today. The Politico's Alexander Burns relayed Linkhorn's gullibility to the rest of the nation -- or at least the few people scattered throughout the nation who might bother to read it.

Marchionne, as quoted by Linkhorn told employees that "Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand. It is inaccurate to suggest anything different." While that may be true, it doesn't change the fact that the company announced plans to build a new Jeep model in Italy which will be exported to Europe and North America. As Bloomberg reported early this afternoon:

Politico promises readers who sign up for its subscription "Pro" service they they will have "No boring stories telling you things you already know."

Well, there's nothing more predictable and boring than stories about global warming and climate change which appear every time there's a major hurricane, serious flooding, or other weather-related catastrophe. Yet, as will be seen after the jump, the supposedly non-boring Politico Pro front page has two such stories in its top four.

The national and battleground state polls are all showing tremendous momentum for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney since the first debate.

Despite this, with the absence of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, the entire panel of PBS’s Inside Washington Friday – comprised of the Washington Post’s Colby King, PBS’s Mark Shields, Politico’s Evan Thomas, and NPR’s Nina Totenberg – unanimously stated that if the election were held today, President Obama would win (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

You don't know whether to laugh or cry upon reading the Sunday night shots campaign Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Politico took at Mitt Romney and his campaign.

Maybe these guys really believe that the Romney campaign is the one which still desperately needs a "last chance to move the needle in any significant way in the swing states that will decide the election," and that "Obama is slightly better positioned in the states that will dictate the outcome." If they do, my take is that the Romney campaign is playing possum, and the Politico pair, infused with Beltway naiveté and skewed polling data, are gullibly buying it. Several paragraphs from their effort follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Gateway Pundit blog and Michelle Malkin's Twitchy site both reported on Saturday how Ryan Clayton, a far left contributor to DailyKos and Huffington Post, was escorted out a Friday night showing of the documentary, Hating Breitbart, in Arlington, Virginia, for his outbursts during the opening minutes of the film. Clayton actually makes an appearance in the movie, where he shouted bogus allegations of cocaine use and soliciting male prostitutes at Breitbart in 2011.

I actually played a part in getting the leftist booted out of the theater. I went to the 10:20 pm showing at the invitation of Jason Jones of Movie to Movement, who is a good friend and a former boss. I sat towards the back of the theater, as many of the seats were filled by the time I entered. When the documentary started, Clayton somehow thought it was appropriate to add his own commentary track and laughed like a hyena at various points. I spoke up and told him to stop talking. But he didn't stop.

Updated at bottom of post | Politico's Edward-Isaac Dovere might want to brush up on federal firearms law before he holds forth on "fact-checking" statements about the issue. During a "Truth Squad" segment reacting to Tuesday night's debate on the October 17 Jansing & Co., the Politico deputy White House editor told MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing that Romney "is not correct as the [federal] law currently stands" regarding automatic weapons. Romney told the debate audience last night that "we of course don't want to have automatic weapons, and that's already illegal in this country [for civilians] to have automatic weapons."

"The assault weapons ban expired, this was the law when Bill Clinton signed it in when he was president, but it expired under George Bush and it has not been renewed," Dovere noted, adding, "the way Congress is going at this point, it doesn't look like it will be." But Dovere is confusing the expired ban on so-called semiautomatic assault weapons with long-standing federal restrictions on automatic weapons.

Jake Sherman at the Politico is suffering from the same detachment from reality I found his colleague Anna Palmer in this morning (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog).

Palmer's piece asserted that an election win by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney would herald the return of l-l-l-lobbyists, who have supposedly (not actually) been a rare presence in the pristine and pure Obama administration. Sherman's affliction is just as serious, if not moreso, as in an item posted Monday evening, he characterizes 2012 as a "non-Tea Party year," and seems to believe that everyone who disapproves of the job Congress has been doing must be to the left of House Speaker John Boehner. Hilarity follows the jump:

There must be some kind of alternative universe reporters at the Politico inhabit as they toil for the online publication. That's the only conceivable explanation I can conjure up when I read some of what is presented there.

Take a report which first appeared early Monday morning from Anna Palmer (please). If she weren't reporting from that alternative universe, she wouldn't possibly be able to believe what she wrote in her story about how big, bad, eeeevil l-l-l-lobbyists will have so much influence in a possible Mitt Romney administration, and how that is such a stark contrast to how pristine and pure things have been during the Obama years (bolds are mine):

In a jarring campaign ad for Jeff Flake's U.S. Senate campaign, Dr. Cristina Beato alleges that, when he worked under her as Bush's Surgeon General, Flake opponent Democrat Richard Carmona angrily pounded on her front door during the middle of the night on one occasion. As a "single mom," Beato told viewers, "I feared for my kids and myself." Carmona "has issues with anger, with ethics, and with women," she added.

This charge --  leveled in a November 2007 interview with majority and minority counsels for the House Oversight Committee --is, if true, very troubling. So how is MSNBC -- the network most obsessed with the GOP's supposed "war on women" -- reacting to the explosive charges? By bemoaning how nasty the Flake campaign is by running the ad, of course. From the October 15 edition of MSNBC's Jansing & Co.:

Ten days ago, Politico staffer-turned Debbie Wasserman Schultz flak-turned Politico staffer Jon Allen published a laughably-headlined story in "Joe Biden: Sex symbol?" So naturally, Allen was the perfect choice for the liberally-slanted MSNBC's The Cycle to bring on its Friday program to review the previous night's vice presidential debate.

While Allen refused to be as gaga over Joe Biden as liberal co-host Krystal Ball was, he failed to do any fact-checking of the vice president and suggested that Biden won on the substance of the debate:

Veteran liberal journalist David Chalian was fired by Yahoo after he was caught on an open mic at this year's Republican convention in Tampa saying that GOP officials were "happy to have a party with black people drowning," a story first exposed by NewsBusters. Politico’s Dylan Byers reports that didn’t stop him from being picked up off liberal waivers by....Politico.

Politico editor-in-chief John Harris said management took Chalian's remark into consideration prior to hiring him to manage their video content.  "He’s made clear that remark did not reflect his personal views or professional standards. This is a journalist who carries with him more than a decade of accomplishment and a well-earned reputation for fairness.” That's not tainted at all by a crack about Mitt Romney glorying in the deaths of black Americans?

In a Friday interview where the primary purpose was to give her an opportunity to defend her Bureau of Labor Statistics, Obama administration Department of Labor head Hilda Solis gave CNBC viewers the false impression that prior-month upward revisions to reported job additions were in the private sector (they were all government jobs), and falsely claimed, despite her boss's refusal to do anything until after Election Day, that "Congress needs to work with us."

The video can be found at CNBC, where Solis tells the network's reporter that "I am insulted" that people would believe that BLS's books are cooked. Here is her specific quote on job growth (Solis's comments below are not in the text of the post; HT Breitbart's Big Government; bolds are mine):

Politico editor Jim VandeHei appeared on MSNBC, Thursday, to blame Barack Obama's poor debate performance on the burdens of the office. The journalist spun, "The President had to be the President, and had to be a candidate, and so he didn't have nearly as much prep time." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

VandeHei did not try and sugarcoat the debate performance itself, knocking the President for thinking he could "just walk on there, play it safe, and do well." But the former political reporter for the Washington Post journalist did offer this whopper about how the triumphant Mitt Romney would be treated going forward: "He has a week or two, I think, of probably pretty positive coverage." The liberal media giving Romney two weeks of positive coverage seems stunningly unlikely.

As Matt Vespa at NewsBusters noted earlier this morning, MSNBC's Howard Fineman was extremely unhappy with Jim Lehrer's performance as moderator in last night's first presidential debate. Vespa reports that Fineman "seemed agitated to the point of calling Lehrer 'useless' and equated his moderating of the debate to 'criminal negligence.'"

In what may be seen as a surprise, the same network's Laurence O'Donnell didn't share that sentiment, as Mackenzie Weinger reported this morning at Politico:

In an item which talks about a "secret retreat" planned by eight senators which is so "secret" that it's getting a two-page story, the Politico's John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman write that "If polls stay steady, (House Speaker John) Boehner will be at the helm of a House filled with Republicans disappointed that Obama will have another four years in the White House."

Uh, last time I checked, pollsters' results can hold steady or go in whatever cooked or uncooked directions they wish, and they still won't determine the outcome of the election. Ballots by voters and the presumably accurate inclusion and counting of such ballots will. Besides, as will be shown, there are even more valid reasons to question poll results now than in the past. Several paragraphs from the rest of B&S's BS, which is apparently designed to get the country ready to accept "revenue" (i.e., tax) increases, follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post).