Stimulus
AP and Politico Ignore Dem Senators' Demand for Another Round of 'Stim
November 19th, 2012 9:56 AM
On November 14, the Hill reported that "Senate Democrats, feeling confident from their net gain of two seats in last week’s election, say any deficit-reduction package negotiated in the coming weeks must include stimulus measures." Alexander Bolton's writeup quoted Senator Chuck Schumer publicly asserting that "We have to do something because the economy is not growing fast enough in the first…
AP's Final Report on October Deficit Equates Bush and Obama Deficits
November 14th, 2012 4:45 PM
Well, there's one little bit of good news in Martin Crutsinger's final report on yesterday's release of the federal government's October Monthly Treasury Statement (I did a review of his initial take yesterday [at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog]). The good news is that Crutsinger, unlike in most months during the past several years I have reviewed such reports, actually identified the single-month…
Year-Over-Year Deficit Worsens in October, and the Problem Is Spending
November 13th, 2012 3:10 PM
The government's October 2012 Monthly Treasury Statement was released at 2 p.m. It tells us that the government took in $184 billion ($21 billion more than last year) while spending $304 billion ($43 billion more), leaving a $120 billion deficit. That's 22% higher than the October 2011 shortfall of $98.5 billion.
The early report from the Associated Press's Martin Crustinger predictably tells…
Andrew Sullivan Swings and Misses Rebutting NewsBusters
November 1st, 2012 10:59 PM
On Thursday, I wrote a piece exposing several factual errors in Andrew Sullivan's recent love letter to President Obama.
Sullivan responded hours later:
Not News: Bankrupt Abound Solar Touted by Obama in 2010 Now Under Crim
October 26th, 2012 5:57 PM
In his weekly radio address on July 3, 2010, President Barack Obama announced that "the Department of Energy is awarding nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments from the Recovery Act to two solar companies." Neither of them was named Solyndra.
One of the two companies Obama did name was Fort Collins, Colorado-based Abound Solar, which Obama touted as a company which would create "more…
Economy Would Have Been Worse Without Obama, Networks Conclude
October 25th, 2012 2:49 PM
After three so-called “recovery summers,” the economy has yet to recover under President Barack Obama. Unemployment stands at 7.8 percent, but would be far higher if more people were looking for jobs. GDP was downgraded to 1.3 percent and the national debt is $16 trillion.
Looking back, the broadcast networks have consistently depicted past summers as times of economic renewal, despite an…
Media Debate Fail: Obama, the Auto Bailout and China
October 23rd, 2012 9:52 AM
In their third Presidential debate analysis, the Jurassic Press Media last night and thus far this morning have failed utterly in their role as fact checker and record-corrector - at least when it comes to what President Barack Obama had to say.
As but one glaring example, there were the President’s absurd assertions regarding the auto bailout and China.
At Bloomberg, Kinsley Claims 'No Major Terrorist Episodes' on Obama's
October 13th, 2012 9:10 AM
In an op-ed at "Bloomberg View" on Wednesday evening, editor and columnist Michael Kinsley's headline teased that "Maybe President Romney Wouldn’t Be So Bad," before twice urging readers to vote to reelect President Obama, including in the final paragraph after an alleged parenthetical (and obviously mythical) "Pause for reflection." Ha ha.
What came in between wasn't very funny at all -- and…
On CBS, Time's Foroohar Spins Debate: 'You Have to Wonder Whether Romn
October 4th, 2012 12:33 AM
Time's assistant managing editor Rana Foroohar could have been mistaken as an Obama campaign flack during CBS's post-presidential debate coverage on Wednesday night, with her claim that "the key issue is, really, taxes, and I think that you have to wonder whether Romney's math adds up." She asserted, "There's a bigger math issue here, and that's whether or not lowering tax rates actually…
MSNBC's Thomas Roberts Laughably Insists Democrats Didn't Control Cong
September 21st, 2012 4:30 PM
In the wake of Romney’s “47 percent” comments and less than positive polling from key swing states, every squishy Republican in the liberal media's stable of acceptable Republicans went into full panic mode. But just yesterday, President Obama made a huge admission when he admitted that his biggest miscalculation was that he thought he could change Washington from the inside.
Republican…
Oversensitive NYTimes Editor Laments Success of GOP 'Deceit and Ridicu
September 21st, 2012 12:41 PM
New York Times reporter turned editorial writer David Firestone showed extreme sensitivity to the tender feelings of Democrats in his Wednesday afternoon post, "The ‘Redistribution’ of Wealth." In an editorial Sunday he dubiously claimed "Don't Tell Anyone, But the Stimulus Worked."
Guided by pollsters like Frank Luntz, the Republican party upgraded all rich people into “job creators,” and…
WaPo's Woodward Hawks New Book on CSPAN; Predictably Laments Compromis
September 18th, 2012 12:36 PM
Liberal Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward appeared on the September 17 C-SPAN program Washington Journal to hawk his new book The Price of Politics.
In the process, Woodward promoted the same stale narrative that compromise is dead in Washington mostly because of those rascally, conservative Republicans, but sought to import a fair measure of melodrama to the stalemate in…
CNBC's Joe Kernen Calls Paul Krugman a Communist
September 11th, 2012 5:15 PM
CNBC's Joe Kernen on Monday called New York Times columnist Paul Krugman a communist.
Kernen expressed the same sentiments for economist and Huffington Post contributor Dean Baker (video follows with transcript and commentary):
NBC Plays Up Stimulus Funding of DC Reflecting Pool Renovation
August 31st, 2012 8:31 PM
On Friday's NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams touted the stimulus spending that went to renovating the reflecting pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC: "Tourists in Washington this holiday weekend will find water in the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool for the first time in two years. It was actually stimulus funding that paid for the major renovation…