Economy

Can anyone in Midway, Georgia take money for or even borrow food without risking arrest? If you're in Midway, you'd better not let your neighbors reimburse you for any homemade food you cook or grow, or you might get busted for not having "a business license, peddler’s permit, and food permit to set up shop, even on residential property." Heck, you may have to worry about even giving your…

"You know, in Journalism 101, if you're going to ask a question of someone like the president, what you do is, you take, respectfully, you take the opposition's best argument and you play devil's advocate," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell argued on the July 14 edition of "Hannity." But instead of taking that approach -- which, Bozell noted, the famous liberal reporter Sam Donaldson took…

The 2010 elections, which changed the balance of power in the House, were driven by popular opposition to government spending, debt and the threat of tax increases. Yet even with the federal debt limit already breached and only days left to prevent a national default, the media continue to ignore the public's wishes. The theme of network reports on the debt ceiling battle is that some…

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that President Barack Obama has shown a “level of patience” in debt limit negotiations with congressional leaders that does not compare to the biblical figure Job, known as the “Man of Patience.”  

It has been widely reported that President Barack Obama walked out of Wednesday night's debt limit meeting, but MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Thursday was in complete denial that the Democratic president, who's merely "exasperated by Republicans playing this dangerous game," would conduct himself in such a way. During his daily "Clear the Air" segment, Bashir offered mounds of incredulity but not…

Last night (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that the State of Minnesota, where the government is shut down but spokesman for the Department of Public Safety Doug Neville is somehow still working, is demanding that MillerCoors pull its products from Gopher State store shelves within days, and identified a number of questions non-inquisitive Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Eric Roper…

Two days after Anderson Cooper described President Barack Obama as the "adult" in a room of unruly Republicans, Obama reportedly stormed out of a heated discussion on debt negotiations yesterday due to his frustration with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Also yesterday came a stern reminder from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi that the president has repeatedly listened to the concerns…

At the Associated Press, the task of reporting on the official results of Uncle Sam's June Monthly Treasury Statement fell to Christopher Rugaber instead Marty Crutsinger. Next time, Chris, tell us what happened in the month you're covering instead of going almost exclusively with the federal government's year-to-date results. If Rugaber had looked more closely at June, he would have had to…

Well, I guess it's getting serious now in the melodrama known as the Minnesota state government shutdown. If the Gopher State shutdown goes on much longer, hundreds of bars and restaurants will lose their ability to serve alcohol because they can't renew their liquor licenses. Worse, as reported by Eric Roper at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, MillerCoors, whose "brand license" somehow expired…

Chris Matthews on Wednesday gave a lesson on utterly shameless fear-mongering. In the final segment of MSNBC's "Hardball," the host said, "Failure to act on the debt ceiling will create a horror for our country, a horror we’ve never seen before" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

James Pethokoukis of Reuters published a chart Tuesday demonstrating exactly why all the hysteria about a debt default or missing Social Security check payments is a bunch of nonsense. If America's news outlets were actually interested in disseminating the truth rather than fear-mongering, this chart or something like it would be part of every report involving the debt ceiling:

The New York Times's chief economics writer David Leonhardt proposed his usual solution – tax hikes – to the ongoing budget and debt-ceiling battles between congressional Republicans and President Obama in his confidently titled Wednesday column “Why Taxes Will Rise In the End.” Leonhardt struggled to ponder why his fellow citizens stubbornly refuse to raise the debt ceiling. Polls show that…

As a result of Scott Pelley's interview with President Obama on the "CBS Evening News" Tuesday, the media are once again scaring seniors with the absurd notion Social Security checks won't go out in August if the debt ceiling isn't raised. An examination of the video and transcript of the relevant sections of this exchange bring into question whether or not that's actually what the President…

President Barack Obama told CBS News today that there may not be enough money in the U.S. Treasury to cover Social Security checks after Aug. 3 if Congress does not agree to lift the legal limit on the federal debt and allow his administration to borrow more money. "I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the…