Business Coverage

The official Monthly Treasury Statement for February came out Wednesday showing a deficit for the month of $204 billion, basically the same as the Congressional Budget Office predicted several days earlier. The reported deficit through five months of the fiscal year is $494 billion, down from $580 billion a year earlier. That February result was an "improvement" of $28 billion over the $232…

New York Times campaign finance reporter Nicholas Confessore's 2,000-word front-page story Wednesday took a liberal angle on a judge striking down New York City's controversial new regulation that would have banned soda portions over 16 ounces. Besides the paternalism of lines like "a victory for the industry’s steadfast, if surprising, allies: advocacy groups representing the very…

“Large sugary drinks” got a reprieve this week after a judge struck down New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on drinks above a certain size and in only some dining establishments. But sugar is still under attack according to Advertising Age magazine. The cover story of the magazine’s March 11, 2013, issue was headlined “Public Enemy No. 1,” and warned marketers to “beware” because “…

At the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Martin Crutsinger's treatment of the February employment report released on Friday was pretty much the slavering soliloquy one would have expected. Crutsinger described the past four months as a "hiring spree," and the job market as "accelerating." Even sticking with the seasonally adjusted figures, that doesn't stand up well, given…

Does David Brooks read the news?  I’m sure he does, but with the liberal media failing to report on the spike in gas prices – it’s no surprise that this New York Times Republican thinks the price of oil has gone down...instead of the "worst February on record." On the PBS Newshour last night, Ruth Marcus filled in for Mark Shields, and said that the new jobs numbers are a positive development…

The George Soros-funded eco-news outlet Grist attacked Beef Products Inc (BPI). In its March 6 blog titled “Pink-slime Maker’s Lawsuit Against ABC Grows Slimier” Grist writer Susie Cagle bashed the company’s lean beef as “uber-gross” and inaccurately described it as “ammonia-soaked.” Cagle went on to complain that “I’d be bitter, too, if I were Beef Products, Inc.” According to Cagle, a BPI…

Readers here can attempt to fill in the blank, and will get to the the correct answer after the jump. In their coverage of U.S. vehicle sales in February, Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin at the Associated press, aka the Administration's Press, wrote the following in an item headlied "US AUTO SALES POWER AHEAD IN FEBRUARY": "Americans want new cars and trucks, and they're not letting higher gas…

On Thursday, the government reported that the economy didn't contract by a tiny annualized 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 as originally reported. Instead, the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by an equally tiny 0.1 percent. Expectations had been that the revision would go positive by an annualized 0.5 percent. According to Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press,…

New York Times investigative reporter Michael Moss's huge cover story, "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food is a super-sized 9,400 words long, eclisped perhaps only by Matt Bai's slanted magazine cover story on the debt fight in last April. A. Barton Hinkle saved everyone some time with a succinct sarcastic summary column. A recent cover story in The New York Times Magazine…

The rogue collection of bureaucrats known as the Environmental Protection Agency continues its lawless ways. The establishment press continues to serve as enablers. In January, a federal court vacated the EPA's regulations mandating the use of cellulosic biofuels which weren't produced at all until last year, and barely exist now. In response, the agency, directly defying the court, increased…

An Investor's Business Daily editorial on Friday confirmed a couple of items which seemed intuitively obvious but which I didn't prove on Thursday in my post (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) about the Department of Labor's outrageous decision to grant unionized workers at now-liquidating Hostess Bakeries "Trade Adjustment Assistance" (TAA). The first is that it will cost a lot of money,…

You've got to hand it to the headline writers at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press. They sure know how to abuse their power to shape public perceptions. The headline at Martin Crutsinger's report this morning on projected economic growth for 2013, which the wire service is treating as this morning's "Big Story," reads: "ECONOMISTS PREDICTING MODERATE GROWTH IN 2013." Many…

Forbes just published its 20 Most Miserable Cities List for 2013. The magazine left off several obviously more "worthy" contenders, perhaps because its decisions to include and exclude certain criteria were, to say the least, more than a little odd. I have listed the magazine's top twenty following the jump, along with each city's mayor and that person's political leanings, showing a…

For the past six weeks combined, actual jobless claims filed nationwide have been virtually the same as the were during the six comparable weeks in early 2012. You wouldn't know that from Christopher Rugaber's coverage at the Associated Press of the Department of Labor's unemployment claims report released yesterday. Rugaber, who described last month's jobs report showing the unemployment…