Unemployment

The Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa, who became infamous last year for her stories of "vanishing jobs" that weren't, sounded hopeful early this morning before the release by Uncle Sam's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of its first-quarter report on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth:Economy's free-fall probably eased in 1QThe recession's grip on the country may be letting up a bit.The…

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…

While Fox News has celebrated the Taxpayer Tea Party rallies and MSNBC has denigrated them, the impetus of the movement - CNBC and specifically Rick Santelli, its inspiration - had been conspicuously quiet about it. But on CNBC's "Squawk Box" April 15, co-host Joe Kernen asked Santelli what he thought of being a "cultural phenomenon." That was the same show Santelli famously called out President…

Even before a single bag of tea has been dumped as a form of protest over government economic policies, the gang at MSNBC is in full-attack mode over the notion these protests merit any recognition. On MSNBC's April 10 "Countdown," fill-in host David Shuster imitated his MSNBC colleague Rachel Maddow's juvenile and overdone description of the tea party protest to disparage the upcoming…

It's hard to find an upside to the continuous drumbeat of bad economic news. But on April 7, MSNBC host and Obama cheerleader Rachel Maddow felt compelled to try. "There is a silver lining here, maybe," Maddow said. "As horrible as the jobs numbers are and as pessimistic as executives across the country appear to be - Americans broadly speaking are actually sort of increasingly optimistic these…

Barack Obama has done something no other president has done in the five months after his election.He and his pals Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid laid the groundwork for this achievement back in June when they created what I have since last July been calling the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, so it is fair to say that Obama's accomplishment, spanning November 2008 through March 2009, belongs to him…

Since former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean stepped down as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he has ventured into other opportunities. One of those opportunities was to be a business pundit for the financial news channel CNBC, even though Dean's background prior to politics was in medicine. But just over a week later, in an e-mail dated April 2 to MoveOn.org mailing list subscribers…

On the March 28 World News Saturday, ABC correspondent John Hendren observed that the "pure adulation" formerly shown for President Obama in Europe has now faded as the President prepares for the G-20 summit in London to convince the group of economic superpowers to adopt his plans to increase spending to stimulate the economy. After anchor Dan Harris introduced the report noting that "Mr. Obama…

Just under 90 minutes before President Barack Obama's Tuesday night news conference, ABC's World News set out to support his contention that his policies have already led to economic improvement. Picking up on how Obama planned to announce at the start of the session that thanks to his economic policies “we are beginning to see signs of progress,” anchor Charles Gibson asked: “Well, is the…

CBS anchor Katie Couric on Friday night used the jump in the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent to cheerlead for how the “stimulus” bill is “creating” jobs, an impact her newscast illustrated with two full stories after reporter Anthony Mason declared: “It's the government that's going to have to pull us out of this recession.” (On ABC's World News, Betsy Stark similarly saw salvation in the…

As part of a continuation of his "COMЯADE UPDATE" segment he started near the beginning of his show, which became a YouTube sensation, Fox News host Glenn Beck is picking up right where he left off. Beck, on his March 4 program took on a couple new targets, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and union labor. "Comrades! Comrades, there is good news from the Western front," Beck said. "Our glorious…

In February, in the build up to the ultimate passage of President Barack Obama's $787-billion stimulus package, there was a lot of discussion about how much the stimulus was going to help the ailing economy. And to promote the bill, Obama visited a Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Ill. Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., who represents the 18th Congressional District of Illinois, where the Caterpillar plant…

Here we go again - another Obama administration/media personality feud in the works. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has no problem addressing media critics of President Barack Obama - even on an individual basis. Since Obama was sworn in as president, Gibbs has addressed criticism from conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, CNBC mercantile exchange floor reporter Rick Santelli and now…

Did you hear the one about Joe Biden claiming that Louisiana under Governor Bobby Jindal is losing 400 jobs a day? Probably not. A search at the Washington Post on "Biden 400 jobs Louisiana" (not in quotes) came back with no results. No relevant results were returned with the same searches done at the New York Times and the LA Times. The math-challenged Biden, who infamously said during the…