Bailouts

Reviewing September's detailed sales results in the car business carried at the Wall Street Journal, three things stick out immediately: The awful performance at General Motors -- down 45% from September 2008. Chrysler's even worse performance -- down "only" 42% from September 2008, but a mind-boggling 61% from September 2007 (62,197 in 2009, 156,799 in 2007) Ford's tiny decline of only 6%…

It was bound to happen. Although some in the liberal media were all too eager to point out instances where some are celebrating President Barack Obama's "epic fail" in the media, it was just a matter of time before conservatives and Republicans got the blame for the President's inability to secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago. Enter MSNBC's Ed Schultz. During his Oct. 2 MSNBC show, the liberal…

Has it really come to this? Is MSNBC so in the tank for the Democratic Party that it takes far-left documentary filmmaker Michael Moore to bring up malfeasance by a leading Democrat? Moore appeared on MSNBC's Sept. 29 "Hardball" to promote his new film "Capitalism: A Love Story." With exception of "The Ed Show" fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell noting the Senate Ethics Committee had cleared Sen.…

As far as the establishment media is concerned, the Cash For Clunkers program Uncle Sam conducted in July and August was a smashing (excuse the term) success. That's the case, despite the deliberate destruction of hundreds of thousands of perfectly usable vehicles, late payments to dealers (the USDOT is finally catching up), the program's failure to give much relief to government bailout…

The progressive mindset is a curious one, as evidenced by New York Times columnist and Nobel Economics Prize recipient Paul Krugman. Krugman appeared on MSNBC's Sept. 23 "The Rachel Maddow Show" and lamented that the Obama Administration missed the opportunity the recent financial crisis offered to fundamentally change how the American economy operates. Host Rachel Maddow asked Krugman what the…

The Associated Press on Thursday released a fact check of Micahel Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, the director’s socialistic new movie. And while writer Rachel Beck asserted "some of [Moore's] arguments...fall apart on closer inspection," ABC managed no such scrutiny when it offered 13 minutes to the filmmaker on Tuesday and Wednesday. For instance, while talking to Nightline host Terry Moran…

If any policy maker watches Michael Moore's new movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story" and is influenced by it - be afraid, be very afraid. Moore appeared on CNN's Sept. 23 "Larry King Live" to promote his movie, but he shared with host Larry King his thoughts on why the stock market has rallied off its lows, despite a rising unemployment. His reasoning - Wall Street likes joblessness, because it's…

Millionaire Michael Moore says capitalism is evil and that the entire system should be thrown out for one that is "democratic" and "fair." That's the overarching message of Moore's new documentary, "Capitalism: A Love Story," which will be widely released Oct. 2. The film won two prizes at the Venice Film Festival and was lauded by critics there and at the Toronto Film Festival. Now Moore is…

The United States has been called a bailout nation, following the passage of TARP in 2008 and the government takeover of the auto industry earlier this year. However, that may ring true in other, more controversial areas, as well. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J, took President Barack Obama and proponents of his style of health care reform, along with the news media that cover the issue, to task, in a…

ABC's "World News" is supposed to be above the fray, right? According to "World News" executive Jon Banner, his program didn't jump into covering the recent ACORN scandal because it is "not in the business of noise." And yet on Sept. 20, ABC compromised the quiet dignity of "World News" by discussing health care reform with Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi, a man that claims Goldman…

Michael Moore, the man of many hats - documentary filmmaker, political scientist and now, singer. Moore has been making the rounds to promote his new movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story." On NBC's Sept. 15 "Jay Leno Show," Moore appeared and was asked what was wrong with capitalism. "Capitalism is actually legalized greed," Moore said. "There's nothing wrong with people earning money, starting a…

Somebody really needs to find the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger some OCD therapy. It seems that he has a not-magnificent obsession with the two major theaters of the War on Terror (yeah, I still call it that), and that he seemingly won't be able to conquer it without outside intervention. In his report on August's federal budget deficit, the AP reporter continued to cite the wars in Iraq…

Not everyone at the NBC Universal umbrella of networks got the gag order memo about the Sept. 12 march on Washington, D.C. Rick Santelli, who has been a target of the Obama White House and is credited with being the inspiration for the 2009 tea party movement, spoke out about how the media ignored the march. But, a year after the fall of Lehman Brothers, he was making the larger point that the…

Maybe there's a reason why the media have either denigrated or completely ignored the Sept. 12 march in Washington, D.C. - they were highly critical of their job performance as well. Aside from protesters taking on CNN reporter Lisa Desjardins, as NewsBusters Matt Sheffield pointed out, there were also other pockets of backlash against media evident at the march, which were captured on video (…