Bailouts

Paul Krugman is known for throwing a bomb or two from his platform in the New York Times, but it's really tough to take him for a violent fellow. In his July 2 blog post, "I'm Gonna Haul Out The Next Guy Who Calls Me ‘Crude' And Punch Him In the Kisser," Krugman lamented criticism of his support for more stimulus spending. A July 1 editorial in The Economist noted that the economy needs more…

In the wake of a European debt crisis, the recent G-20 meeting in Toronto revealed the intention of many European nations to begin dramatically tightening their fiscal belts. The world leaders agreed to cut deficits in half by 2013 and "start to stabilize their debt-to-output ratios by 2016," according to Bloomberg Businessweek. That goal conflicted with President Barack Obama's wishes.…

Can anyone think of an angrier group of writers in political punditry than the ones currently published at Salon.com? Throughout the Elena Kagan hearings, both Joan Walsh and Joe Conason have written anti-Republican screeds accusing GOP lawmakers of all sorts of unsavory things to score political points despite what's likely be a certain confirmation. However, this disposition goes beyond…

Add New York Times columnist Bob Herbert to the growing list of liberal media members realizing that Barack Obama's campaign slogan "Hope and Change" was nothing but a great sales pitch."Mr. Obama and the Democrats have wasted the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity handed to them in the 2008 election," wrote Herbert Tuesday."They did not focus on jobs, jobs, jobs as their primary mission." No, they…

On Thursday, a new unemployment bill died in Congress as Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) joined Republicans on the grounds that government spending can't go on forever. Instead of reporting both sides, the media couldn't seem to hide their anger. The bill was called a "jobless aid" package that "governors were counting on" to help "the poor" across the nation. Almost all news reports began from the…

This is one of those "I told you so" moments conservatives should really be out publicizing: The $787-billion stimulus passed early 2009 - it's not working. And on CNBC's June 25 broadcast of "The Call," CME Group floor reporter Rick Santelli explained that all government spending is not created equal, and President Obama's so-called stimulus spending was for government payrolls and not the…

Fresh off his Tea Party cover story in the June 24 Weekly Standard, CNBC's Rick Santelli foresees what could be classified as an economic black hole for the United States of America.On the network's June 24 broadcast of "Strategy Session," the CME Group reporter explained how the country could be headed down the same path and face the economic calamity the Japanese faced in what is known as the…

Obama's home loan modification program was talked up by the bailout-friendly news media as a potential "ray of light" for struggling homeowners. But on June 21, Associated Press reported the mortgage assistance program is "falling flat." The broadcast networks supported the mortgage modification and housing bailout when Obama launched it in 2009, after criticizing Treasury Secretary…

On the June 20th edition of Sunday Morning, CBS reporter Richard Schlesinger conducted a glowing interview with pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, lauding him as someone who speaks with "moral authority" and who has "become an expert assessor of the value of life itself." Feinberg, who will now be in charge of distributing the $20 billion BP has pledged for the oil spill, previously worked with President…

Tough times don't last; tough people do. That's the theme of author John S. Cohoat's new book "No Thank You, Mr. President," which tells the story of 10 private companies in Elkhart County, Ind., that made their own way to economic recovery without government handouts. "My hope is that these stories provide some inspiration for you or make you remember why our capitalist economic policies and…

When it comes to the performance of the U.S.-headquartered Detroit automakers once known as the Big Three, the real news in the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 Initial Quality Study (IQS) is not what the Associated Press's Stephen Manning wrote in his Thursday coverage ("US cars top foreign brands on quality survey") of Power's pronouncement. While barely true and in a sense historic, it's not…

The news media have recently been struck with World Cup fever, with two broadcast networks sending reporters to South Africa to cover the games. At the same time, a bailout request that could cost taxpayers another $50 billion was ignored by most broadcast news programs. ABC, CBS and NBC spent a combined 25 minutes 54 seconds talking about World Cup soccer between June 13 and 15. That was…

Real Clear Politics currently has a video highlighting statements by Democratic Congressman James Clyburn Jr. of South Carolina. It teases the video with a question asked by Candy Crowley of CNN. Once one sees the entire sequence, it's clear that Clyburn really answered Crowley's question before she even asked it. Here's the full transcript of the vid, which begins after Indiana Republican…

An overwhelming majority of Americans prefer freedom of the press to outdated models of journalism, according to a new Rasmussen poll. The survey comes in the midst of discussions in the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission to intervene on behalf of Old Media.Eighty-five percent of respondents in the Rasmussen poll said they believe maintaining press freedom is more…