Government Agencies

The business press's determination to convince the public that weak economic news is really strong seemingly knows no bounds. Today, shortly after the Federal Reserve's Industrial Production report for February showed a seasonally adjusted 0.5 percent decline — worse than expectations of -0.3 percent — the Associated Press pretended in its headline and in reporter Christopher Rugaber's first…

Today's report from the government on February's retail sales was awful. Last month's sales fell by 0.1 percent, which was bad enough. Beyond that, January's originally reported 0.2 percent increase was revised down to a 0.4 percent decrease. Additionally, as I noted at my home blog this morning, January's seasonally adjusted revision should have been much worse, based on how terrible that month'…

In an absurd attempt by Washington Monthly to claim that the scandal at the Veteran’s Affairs Department was “invented” by the Koch brothers in order to “dismantle the country’s most successful health care system,” the liberal publication made numerous false statements that were contradicted by the agency’s own inspector general report.

For years, Andrew F. Puzder, the CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast-food chains, has been telling the world that while the U.S. government makes life needlessly miserable for businesses, California, where it has been headquartered, is exponentially worse. This week, CKE announced that it is moving its headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee. A story at…

Beginning early in 2014, shortly after its initial disastrous rollout, there has been a virtual blackout on anything resembling negative coverage of the "Affordable Care Act," aka Obamacare. It hasn't been due to a lack of horror stories: plan cancellations, shocking rate increases, shrunken provider networks, co-ops going out of business, etc. It's because the nation's establishment press has…

Since the economy finally began consistently regaining jobs in early 2010, the establishment press has had a consistent, predictable and annoying reporting (and non-reporting) pattern. It starts with the Friday morning jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at or near the beginning of the month. Virtually without fail, it has spit out positive and sometimes even very positive seasonally…

At the Associated Press, in a Friday morning writeup, the wire service's headline writers and reporter Martin Crutsinger demonstrated extraordinary auditory powers. The headline writers somehow heard the entire U.S. economy start the year off "with a bang." Meanwhile, Crutsinger, continuing to earn his designated title of "worst economics writer" given by Kevin Williamson at National Review…

Hardly anyone would dispute the validity of the term “small-government conservative,” but “big-government liberal” is a horse of a different color, believes Steve Benen, a producer for MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show. Benen claims that while right-wingers’ preference for small government is ideologically driven, “progressives” such as President Obama look at size-of-government issues in practical…

The Associated Press has posted four stories during the past week on the machete-wielding Islamist who attacked patrons at the Nazareth Restaurant and Deli in Columbus, Ohio on February 11, seriously wounding several. The wire service's coverage has been a textbook example of deliberate reality avoidance.

Univision's Jorge Ramos tells Attorney General Loretta Lynch that it's 'not very good' to him that police work with immigration agencies

The Associated Press's choice of a headline to accompany business writer Stan Choe's Saturday morning report on the state of the economy — "MAIN STREET HOLDS UP AS WALL STREET STRUGGLES, FOR A CHANGE" — has a couple of interesting implications. Is AP celebrating the fact that Wall Street is struggling? Or does the idea that "Main Street" is holding up "for a change" mean that it hasn't been…

Joan Walsh, who after a long tenure at Salon.com is now National Affairs Correspondent at far-left publication The Nation, is responding as leftists usually do when their favored candidates and causes are in trouble: immaturely, and by smearing recalcitrant people who, in their fevered minds, should be supporting them. Walsh is a big fan of Hillary Clinton, whose legal and electoral situations…

The Federal Reserve, Fed Chair Janet Yellen, and the ever-cooperative Associated Press have a message for America: "If there's an economic downturn, even one that turns into a recession, it's going to be the rest of the world's fault. The U.S. economy is fine, and it will stay fine if everybody else doesn't ruin it." As the AP's Martin Crutsinger reported today ("YELLEN: TOO EARLY TO DETERMINE…