Unemployment

The June jobs report was “very disappointing” for the Obama administration and to people looking for work, according to CNBC’s John Harwood. The 80,000 job gains was 20,000 short of expectations, and the unemployment rate was unchanged. Moody’s economist Mark Zandi, who has often found a bright side to negative reports, reacted that way again saying there were “silver linings” in the report…

It might sound ridiculous, but Time magazine writer Michael Crowley actually grumbled in an article on Monday that the GOP presidential candidate is “One-Note Mitt” Romney, whose campaign defines this year's election as merely “a referendum on Obama's handling of the economy.” The author then noted that with “almost comical discipline,” Romney “steers virtually every topic” back to the…

Alex Schriver, the Chairman of the College Republican National Committee, totally schooled MSNBC's new co-host Touré Neblett Tuesday on why young people in America aren't just Democrats. Schriver did such a marvelous job that you have to wonder if MSNBC's new program The Cycle will consider inviting him back on (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Obama-loving media might not want to address how bad the unemployment situation is in America under this President, but comedian Jimmie "JJ" Walker on CBS's Late Show Monday had a humorous observation about the current job market. "People are going out looking for work dressed as Mexicans" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

If this were a prize fight, it would have ended at the end of the sixth round in a knockout. In a post at the American Enterprise Institute's blog this afternoon, James Pethokoukis, who previously toiled at U.S. News and Reuters, made mincemeat out of Washington Post reporter Tom Hamburger's Thursday Mitt Romney-Bain Capital hit piece ("Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that moved…

The Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC Monday night featured New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. During the supportive chat, Keynesian Krugman again asserted that more federal spending would have headed off what he calls our current Depression:

The Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber was in mischaracterization mode again today in his coverage of the Business Roundtable's quarterly economic outlook release. After duly noting that the percentage of big company CEOs planning to add workers and purchase additional capital equipment over the next six months had declined (from 42% to 36% and from 48% to 43%, respectively), Rugaber…

It wouldn't quite be fair to say that the Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber sugarcoated his dispatch on today's release of the April Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) by Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it would be more than fair to say he missed several chances to tell readers how significant the setbacks BLS relayed really were (openings fell 8.7% from a…

During the 1980s, despite data which even then was telling them they were wrong, it became a mantra of a desperate establishment press that the booming economy under Ronald Reagan really wasn't that impressive because so many of the new jobs created were part-time or temporary. The data was not then readily available for temps, but it certainly was for part-time vs. full-time employment. It…

We at NewsBusters have been calling MSNBC's Chris Matthews a sycophant for Barack Obama since at least February 2008 when the so-called journalist bragged on the air about getting a thrill up his leg at the sound of the former junior senator from Illinois' voice. It was therefore quite pleasing to hear former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele tell the Hardball host that to…

Sometimes it takes a bit of exertion to disprove an assertion made by an establishment press reporter. Not this time. Today's Department of Labor report on initial unemployment claims told us that such filings "unexpectedly" (as relayed by Reuters and Bloomberg) rose to 386,000 from an upwardly revised (of course) 380,000 the previous week; expectations were for a fall to 375,000. About an hour…

Might the man who once said of himself "there's been nobody who's a bigger Obama supporter" vote for Mitt Romney?  Maybe.  On today's Morning Joe, Donny Deutsch—ad exec, man-about-the-Hamptons and quintessential wealthy NYC liberal—declared that his support for President Obama is "wavering." Deutsch said that it was the bad jobs numbers of a couple weeks ago that "changed everything for me…

Charlie Rose deferred to Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod on Monday's CBS This Morning regarding the controversy over several recent national security leaks. Axelrod repeatedly denied that the leaks came from the administration. Rose didn't challenge his guest's talking point, even though former Defense Secretary Robert Gates indicated that White House officials went "out in public with…

Straining to find a way to excuse President Obama's Friday remark that "the private sector is doing fine," on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry did her best to spin for the White House: "He is right in saying that the private sector is doing better than the public sector, is he not? And so that was his point, that this comment was taken out of context." [Listen to the audio or watch the…