AP Again 'Fact Checks' a Goal: Bush's 4 Percent Annual Growth Target

On Friday, in his desire to help his employer outdo Politifact as the last place to go for accurate fact-checking, the Associated Press's Josh Lederman "fact-checked" Jeb Bush's belief that the U.S. economy can grow annually at an average rate of 4 percent. As seen in my Friday NewsBusters post, when the AP reporter "fact-checked" assertions that really are facts, specifically Bush's claim that…

AP: Jeb Bush Is Responsible for Jobs Lost Under Charlie Crist

The Associated Press seems determined to become even worse at "fact-checking" politicians' statements than Politifact, the current cellar-dwellar in that regard. At the rate things are going, the wire service, in addition to richly earning its nickname "the Administration's Press" since January 2009, appears to be in line for yet another: "Associated Politifact." In his "fact check" following…

'View' Host Uses Anti-Trump Gaffe on Latinos to Ask for More Civility

Culture
On August 4, The View celebrity guest Kelly Osbourne made a big-time gaffe on air. In a discussion of Donald Trump and racism, Osbourne declared “If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?”  Although her intentions were pure, Osbourne’s comment was met with big-time backlash, making her Tuesday’s “most hated person on the internet.”…
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Jon Stewart's Lowest Moment: Hiroshima Makes Truman a War Criminal

How absolutely serendipitous it is that alleged comedian and actual White House propagandist Jon Stewart’s last broadcast of The Daily Show is today, August 6, the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. You see, Stewart, whose influence is especially nefarious when he is revising and distorting history for his relatively young audience, committed his most outrageous such act…
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Press Ignores Hillary Bringing Back Her Southern-Accent Pander

Though it's not as blatant as the speech which got noticed at Fox News and many center-right outlets (and, of course, nowhere else) eight years ago, it's clear that Hillary Clinton once again altered her diction and style several days ago to (in her mind, one would surmise) "adapt" them to her Southern audience. This time, Mrs. Clinton was being interviewed by South Carolina Democratic Party…

Politifact: 'Pants on Fire' To Reid For '30%' Planned Parenthood Lie

Call the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" people. Politifact, the alleged fact-checking site which has for years almost invariably insisted on calling obvious truths stated by Republicans and conservatives "Half True" at best and often worse, while taking flat-out lies by leftists and pretending they contain some element of truth, has issued a "Pants on Fire" rating on Senate Minority Leader Harry…

Time Headline: 'Koch Says U.S. Can Bomb Its Way to $100,000 Salaries'

I noted on Sunday how former Associated Press reporter Philip Elliott, writing for Time Magazine's Time.com website, joined the Scott Walker pile-on brigade criticizing the Wisconsin Governor's reasonable — arguably to a fault — position that he doesn't personally know whether Barack Obama is a Christian. A separate post by Elliott, which covered a weekend retreat hosted by Charles Koch,…
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Josh Earnest Talks Like Obama Prefers Biden Over Hillary

On today's Morning Joe, Josh Earnest said that President Obama believes that picking Biden as his VP was the "smartest decision he ever made in politics." Joe Scarborough drew the mischievous-but-logical inference that Obama must thus believe it was smarter than picking Hillary as his Secretary of State.  Though Mika interrupted to say that's not what he meant, Earnest never said boo to counter…

Press Still Badgers Walker Over Refusal to Say Obama Is a Christian

One of the more outrageous chapters during presidential campaign season so far, the press harassment of 2016 GOP candidate and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in February over his statement that he "doesn't know" whether President Barack Obama is a Christian, is back. Nobody in the press seems interested in asking Obama himself how he can still profess to be a Christian and support homosexual…

AP Buries Judge's IRS Contempt Threat in Final Graphs of Hearing Story

On Thursday, Curtis Houck at NewsBusters noted how the Big Three networks and the two leading Spanish-language networks ignored the latest developments in the now 813 day-old IRS targeting scandal. As usual, only Fox News covered a congressional hearing on, in Fox's words, "the lack of accountability following the IRS targeting of tea party and other groups" as well as a federal judge's threat "…
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Scarborough: Media Bias Worst On Issue of Abortion

Joe Scarborough chose to couch his criticism in exculpatory explanation, claiming that reporters "try to be as fair as possible" and that their bias is "unintended."  But Scarborough's bottom line was still this: that media bias is at its worst when it comes to the issue of abortion. Speaking on today's Morning Joe, Scarborough took his critique a significant step further, asserting that if a…
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Ohio Press Mostly Ignores Black Democrat's Inspiring Pro-Life Speech

Ohio's newspapers have reported that two state legislators, one Democrat and one Republican, are cosponsoring a bill to defund Planned Parenthood in the Buckeye State. But they have mostly failed to note the key points made by Cleveland Democrat Bill Patmon in his inspiring, passionate speech at an Ohio Right to Life rally announcing his cosponsorship. You see, Mr. Patmon is black, and he has…
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Howard Dean: We Need to Be 'More Humble, Stop Making Fun' of Trump

This is fodder for WSJ columnist James Taranto's "everything is seemingly spinning out of control" file. Howard Dean has declared that we'll have to be "more humble" about Donald Trump's prospects and that he will "have to stop making fun" of him for now. What's got Dean doing a 180 on Trump? Not just the latest polls, which include one showing Trump trouncing Jeb and Rubio in their home state…
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O'Reilly Discusses 'Black Lives' Funding, Including Soros and Celebs

On his Tuesday night show, with the help of Kelly Riddell of the Washington Times, Bill O'Reilly of Fox News described how the "Black Lives Matter" movement sustains itself. The rest of the press wants readers, listeners and viewers to presume that it is a self-sustaining, grass-roots movement. It isn't. O'Reilly also noted that megastars Jay-Z and Beyoncé, numbers 28 and 29, respectively, on…