CNN's Acosta Derides Conservative Debt Ceiling Pledge as 'Body-Slam an
Apparently, a pledge to reduce the deficit and cap spending long-term and vote for a strict balanced budget amendment is an extreme measure. CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, reporting on the conservative "Cut, Cap, Balance Pledge," quipped that "it's not exactly cut, cap, and balance. It may be more body-slam and pile-driver."
The pledge, sponsored by numerous grassroots conservative groups,…
Obama’s Suspicious Connections to Clean Tech Companies Receiving Fed
Having friends in Washington is one of the quickest and dirtiest paths to success, but when President Barack Obama is the one helping you out by discriminately favoring your company's products over others, very few in the media seem to care.
Flashback to the early 2000s during former President George Bush's first term. The mainstream media pounced on former Vice President Dick Cheney's…
MSNBC's Martin Bashir: Mitch McConnell 'Suffering Some Kind of Mild De
MSNBC's Martin Bashir, who once argued Sarah Palin's bus tour was in "breach of federal law," attacked Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday, wondering if the 69-year-old Republican is "suffering some kind of mild dementia or long-term memory loss?"
Excoriating McConnell for rejecting tax increases as part of a potential budget deal, the former ABC "Nightline" anchor regurgitated a litany…
Anderson Cooper Again Hits Bachmann Over Farm Subsidies In Lead Segmen
For the second night in a row, Anderson Cooper opened his regular news cast Tuesday touting a story about Michele Bachmann's hypocrisy in benefitting from federal agriculture subsidies. Although his own network, which interviewed Bachmann Tuesday morning, did not report on the matter during that day, Cooper thought it important enough to put the issue as the lead story for the second straight…
AP Joins Bloomberg in Predictable Purge of 'Unexpectedly' in Consumer
One might be an accident. Two indicates a bit of a trend.
Yesterday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that an early dispatch from Bloomberg on a disappointing consumer confidence report opened by telling readers that "Consumer confidence unexpectedly fell in June to a seven-month low ..." A later version purged the dreaded U-word ("unexpectedly"), opening with "Consumer confidence…
Media Leave Out Economists from Stories on Debt Crisis 'Calamity
The United States is in debt up to its eyeballs - or more realistically the Statue of Liberty's eyeballs. On May 16, America hit the debt ceiling. which is slightly less than $14.3 trillion. That works out to about $46,000 for every man, woman and child in the nation.
Despite those staggering numbers, the broadcast networks have relegated their coverage primarily to the politics involved,…
ABC Touts Liberal Mayors Demanding Less Defense Spending, More Money f
On ABC’s World News on Sunday, a report by correspondent Jim Avila highlighted the complaints of left-wing mayors who expressed wishes that more defense spending would be redirected at projects in their cities.
The NBC correspondent speculated about what other items could be paid for using the money used by the Pentagon in Afghanistan and Iraq, and concluded the report seeming to suggest…
Matthews: Bush Caused Recession, But Let's Not Quibble Over Which Part
Chris Matthews Tuesday once again showed that his tenuous grasp of reality is getting dangerously weak.
During the final segment of "Hardball," the host unequivocally blamed the 2007 financial crisis and resulting recession on George W. Bush just moments before he said, "Okay, Obama hasn't been able to get us out of it yet, but...there’s no sense blaming one Party or the other" (video follows…
Case Shiller Home Price 'Boost' Disappears After Seasonal Adjustment
While the vast majority of those in the establishment press doggedly insist on reporting seasonally adjusted numbers in most economic spheres, there is an odd exception: Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.
Not that it's completely the press's fault. S&P emphasizes the raw numbers over the seasonally adjusted ones, and for a pretty good reason: The raw numbers represent…
Bloomberg Predictably Drops 'Unexpectedly' From Consumer Confidence Re
It looks like someone in the establishment business press might be getting a little touchy about the razzing they continually receive for delivering "unexpectedly" bad economic news.
As captured by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit and corroborated in this Google News description, Bloomberg's 10:16 a.m. report on consumer sentiment told readers that "Consumer confidence unexpectedly fell in June…
CNN's Felicia Taylor Goes to Psychics for Economic Predictions
My first reaction to this was, "Well, if this became a common practice, at least we'd hear the word 'unexpectedly' a lot less often."
Over at Mediaite on Friday (some R-rated content is at link; HT Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's place), Josh Feldman ripped CNN business reporter Felicia Taylor, whose background includes stints at the Financial News Network, CNBC, for devoting nearly three…
New Jersey Miracle: What About the Rest of Us
Something astonishing happened in New Jersey last week. A majority Democratic legislature and a Republican governor agreed on a measure that will cut benefits for the state's 750,000 employees and retirees.
Like Wisconsin and other states that are being forced to deal with large budget deficits caused mostly by sweetheart deals struck in more prosperous times between politicians who need…
Just When You Thought Our Fiscal Nightmare Couldn't Get Worse
I'll make you a deal: I'll quit accusing Democrats of obstructing spending and entitlement reform when they quit obstructing spending and entitlement reform.
Now we even have the nonpartisan, sterile, unflappable Congressional Budget Office virtually predicting a "fiscal crisis," yet the Democratic Senate hasn't passed a budget for 785 days. There ought to be a law.
As Connecticut Nears 7,500 Layoffs, AP Nearly Ignores Over 75 Tax Hike
Susan Haigh's report Friday evening on the current status of budget negotiations between Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and the state's public-sector unions contains two glaring errors which mar the entire enterprise.
Haigh conveniently withheld the fact that the Nutmeg State's legislature has already approved $2.6 billion in new taxes over two years until her report's final paragraph,…
