Economy

Thursday night, the Associated Press reported on the Baltimore ACORN sting carried out by James O'Keefe of Andrew Breitbart's new BigGovernment.com web site. A paragraph near the end of the report is virtually a de facto commercial for the controversial group. As to the sting itself, in case you missed it -- in two devastating videos originally posted here that you must see, O'Keefe and Hannah…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has climbed nearly 45 percent since hitting a March 9 low. The S&P 500 (S&P) is up nearly 53 percent. And the NASDAQ (NASDAQ) has soared a whopping 61 percent since the March bottom. But that rally has some analysts shaking their heads. Art Cashin, a CNBC regular who also makes frequent appearances on CBS and NBC news programs to offer insight on…

If your blood pressure can stand it, you can learn a lot about how the Apparatachik Press -- er, the Associated Press -- operates as you watch a news story evolve, or I should say devolve. The wire service often reworks adequately-written stories with no new developments for no apparent reason other than to add bias and/or remove inconvenient truths. A classic example of this occurred in the…

If you rely only on the three major broadcast networks or one of the top major national papers as your news sources, the name "Van Jones" might prompt you to say,"Who?" But, while the media had difficulty reporting on Van Jones the embattled member of the Obama Administration, it had no such trouble covering Van Jones the anti-Iraq War protestor. Jones, who was President Barack Obama's so-…

The Obama administration and its car-czar group appear to be intent on teaching someone who got in their way a brutal lesson. If there's another way to interpret what is going on involving the "Old Chrysler," the company's first-lien secured lenders, and the US Treasury, I want to know what it is.

While arguing with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele about health care reform on Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith proclaimed: "...if the public option is socialism, then what is Medicare?....That people overwhelmingly think works pretty well for them."Steele pointed out Medicare’s obvious flaw: "Medicare’s a government-run program that is not – that is not doing…

Since hitting their lows back in March, financial markets have rallied in the wake of last year's financial crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is up 43 percent since March 9. But can it last? It could be all given up with this rate of government spending according to CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer. Cramer, responding to a viewer e-mail on his Sept.8 program, explained what a…

  Dan Gainor, the Vice-President of Business and Culture for the MRC, appeared on the September 8 edition of Fox Business Live to discuss the media's failure to report on President Obama's green jobs czar Van Jones, who resigned late Saturday night. Gainor stated that the mainstream media "absolutely ignored" the Jones stories. He detailed:

It's clear that President Barack Obama's $787-billion stimulus hasn't worked as advertised, but some economists are worried it could backfire and cause something much worse. According to a new study by economists Charles Rowley of George Mason University and Nathanael Smith of the Locke Institute and endorsed by Nobel laureate James Buchanan, the Keynesian tactics employed by Obama "will…

The evidence is in on Van Jones. He's and admitted communist, signed a petition supporting 9/11 conspiracy theories and has called Republicans a series of vulgar names, and according to Democratic strategist Donna Brazile - there's nothing wrong with that. Brazile, a CNN regular, appeared on CNN's Sept. 7 "The Situation Room," and reacted to Jones' Sept. 5 late-night resignation. "Let me just…

On Friday, Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nation's unemployment rate rose to a seasonally adjusted 9.7% in August, and that the economy lost another 216,000 seasonally adjusted jobs. In various ways, the press tried to put a happy face on the news and otherwise tried to minimize its impact. It also continued, as it has for years, to ignore what really happened on the…

Give Sharon Silke Carty of USA Today credit for unearthing important information about the serious back-office problems with Uncle Sam's Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) program, popularly known as "Cash for Clunkers." This is the program that ABC, CBS, and NBC have all characterized as "a victim of its own success." But Carty didn't do nearly as much as she could have with the information…

(image found at townnews.com) Yesterday's Employment Situation Report from Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics had lots of dismal news. One of the bigger disappointments, but sadly not one of the bigger surprises, is that the teenage unemployment rate reached an all-time seasonally adjusted high of 25.5%. People who know even a little bit about economics should understand why, but an oddly…

It's been nearly seven months since CNBC reporter Rick Santelli took a stand against the Obama administration, which inspired the tea party movement - and the White House hasn't forgotten. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked by CNBC Washington correspondent John Harwood why the administration decided to go after Santelli after his Feb. 19 call for a metaphorical revolt over…