Economy

The economy is already in rough shape, but some think we should let it go to pot - literally. Pro-legalization advocacy groups are promoting the possibility that legalizing marijuana could provide some economic relief, and the media has eagerly explored the idea. On April 20, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) aired TV ads calling for marijuana legalization. They…

Almost a year ago, I was posting on what I called the "Supply-Side Stunner" (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog).In April 2008, the US Treasury collected an all-time record $407.3 billion ($403.75 billion after subtracting the first $3.35 billion wave of stimulus checks, which really should have been treated as outlays, that went out just before month-end). It was an indication that, as I said at the…

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Lamestream Media The media coverage of the more than 800 Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party protests that took place in all fifty states on April 15 ranged from disdainful dismissal of their nature, significance and import, to outright hostility towards the events and individual participants, to sexual innuendo-based full-on ridicule…

Oh for the good old days when West Virginia was full of mountaineers who lived off the land. You know, before those evil coal companies came and enslaved the state to its grimey grasp.That's the view of Julia Bonds, an environmental activist from the Mountain State whom Newsweek's Daniel Stone featured in an April 21 Web-exclusive interview.Not once in his story did Stone press Bonds on specifics…

Update at end: NBC5's Bob Sirott responds to this postPersuading Americans that Barack Obama is an effective president won't be easy.  So local news outlets are lending a hand when they can.  This was obvious last night on Chicago's NBC5 News at 10.  Anchor Bob Sirott reported:And now to a sign the president's economic stimulus is working.  Bank of American today announced a $2.8 billion profit…

It was either an effort to avoid blaming individuals for ill-advised borrowing or an effort to vilify the banking system, but a segment on the April 20 "CBS Evening News" took a very one-sided view of credit-card lending.  On a day bank stocks struggled and dragged the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) down nearly 300 points, "Evening News" scrutinized the current state of the banking system's…

Back in the fall, you would have thought from the media coverage of the TARP debate and its eventual passage that some sort of crime had been committed when the House didn't pass it the first time around. "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric demanded to know from House Minority Leader John Boehner, "What in the world are you people doing?" on her Sept. 29 broadcast. However, there was a side…

It must be hard to keep a straight face when you report that the President of United States going to cut $100 million from a $3.5 trillion budget and then say he is serious about cutting government spending. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs couldn't pull it off. In the White House's April 20 press briefing, Gibbs was asked by Associated Press reporter Jennifer Loven why the $100-million…

...and Once again, the AP trots out Mikhail Gorbachev and sets him up as the ideal world leader. The Associated Press has for years been good for inventing the news out of its own vivid imagination. But now, not only is the AP inventing news it is inventing an entire national self-image, then batting it down all in an effort to prop up the feckless foreign policy of its messiah Barrack Obama.…

Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh says the mainstream media attitude on President Barack Obama is that he is too big to fail. What CNN has planned for the night of April 29 is one of several signs that could be the case. According to an April 19 report from the Associated Press, CNN has a big night of coverage planned for Obama's 100th day in office that will deviate from its normally…

As Tea Parties ensued from coast to coast last week, the Obama administration and their media minions depicted attendees as not understanding that the new president has decreed taxes will be going down for 95 percent of Americans.On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein let the cat out of the bag: Tea Partiers are right. Taxes are going up.This revelation…

Despite all the criticisms of the Fox News Channel broadcasted on MSNBC for promoting tea party coverage, one thing hasn't been pointed out - how the NBC networks, including CNBC and MSNBC are given a pass for their shameless promotion of their Green Week and Green is Universal network events. Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large for National Review and author of "Liberal Fascism," appeared on Fox…

Gosh, I thought you could just throw up a few solar panels, plug into the grid, and our energy problems would be solved in an environmentally perfect way. (/sarc) Of course not. Early this morning, Rita Beamish of the Associated Press reported that solar panel projects are running into problems with water availability and efforts to protect endangered species. But, as usual for a report on energy…

In an outrageous calumny, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg has decided that the nearly one million Americans that attended the tax day tea party protests all across the country must not care about our military veterans. Considering a large number of these very same protesters were military vets, I'd bet that Steinberg's blinkered figuring would come as quite a surprise to them. In his…