Blogs

As yours truly noted in several posts at my home blog on Wednesday and at NewsBusters on Friday and Saturday, the torrent of pre-Thanksgiving "getaway day" economic data was largely disappointing. That didn't stop the Associated Press's Chris Rugaber from pushing the "All is well" meme late Wednesday afternoon, declaring, contrary to what anyone's eyes could see, that "the fundamentals of the U.…

The truth about this year's Thanksgiving and Black Friday store and online sales is out there. It's just that Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, wasn't interested in clearly revealing all of it. Instead, the AP economics writer told readers about the dollar amount of this year's and last year's Thursday and Friday store sales, but failed to quantify the…

On Wednesday, the Associated Press's Josh Boak added to the wire service's collection of weak "Getaway Day" business journalism by declaring that new-home sales "recovered in October." No they didn't. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of 495,000 units reported by the Census Bureau was the fourth-lowest monthly level seen this year, even well below the 521,000 and 545,000 reported in the…

Ever since the White House changed hands almost seven years ago, press reports on the U.S. economy have annoyingly overaccentuated whatever positives reporters might find (or think they have found), while ignoring glaring negatives and omitting key items. One example of such biased reporting came from the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger on Wednesday. In covering the Census Bureau's October…

Economic news on Wednesday's pre-Thanksgiving "Getaway Day" was largely dismal. The government's report on October's personal income and outlays headed up the disappointing news. While incomes increased nicely — at a rate which needs to be repeated about two dozen more times before it can be seen as genuinely impressive — spending only rose by 0.1 percent, while prior months were revised…

There are plenty of problems with the government's "no-fly list," and especially the plans by some congressmen and senators to abuse it. That said, it appears, almost three years later, to have gotten one name right. In late 2012 and early 2013, leftists like Chris Hayes at MSNBC, Glenn Greenwald and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones were upset that Saadiq Long, a U.S. Air Force veteran who was living…

Call it the triumph of the "new normal." At Reuters today, after today's first revision of third-quarter gross domestic product showed that the economy grew by an annualized 2.1 percent, up from the late-October estimate of 1.5 percent, reporter Lucia Mutikani and Editor Paul Simao demonstrated that they have completely given in to the artificially lowered expectations of past seven miserable…

Time Warner Cable is trying to be in the news business, and is currently engaging in such efforts in 22 locations in five states. Unless it wants to be yet another unreliable, hopelessly biased news source, it needs to try harder. Take this November 14 report from north-central North Carolina's Triad area on the city of Greensboro's effort to get residents to turn in unwanted guns. Keep in mind…

In the wake of the Paris terrorist murder sprees, a media narrative that the U.S. is somehow less vulnerable to terrorist attacks than countries in Europe has arisen. The reasons given for this contention would be uproariously funny if the stakes weren't so serious: "Geography and strict travel restrictions." Additionally, according to the report where the meme appears to have originated, there…

The press's reluctance to relay Obamacare-related bad news has been obvious for years. Nowhere is this more consistently the case than at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press. Over half of the state non-profit co-ops set up under Obamacare with $2 billion-plus in taxayer funding are failing. The AP has generally treated those failures as local stories, even though they relate to…

Add what follows to the long list of items we should be reading about in wire service reports but instead must find in the editorial sections of the nation's two leading business newspapers. An Islamist organization tied to the Muslim Brotherhood is involved in the screening potential Syrian refugees allegedly receive before being allowed to come to the United States. Investor's Business Daily…

Several times in the past, we've heard President Barack Obama, and occasionally his press secretary, tell America that the nation's commander-in-chief learned about certain events the same way many of the rest of us did: by seeing them on TV or reading newspaper accounts. A Republican or conservative president hauling out this excuse even once would face endless outrage and ridicule, respectively…

Over two years ago, even the Secretary General at Interpol, an outfit one might expect to be unreceptive to individiuals' right to self-defense, said that one approach to the problem that terrorist groups are more frequently choosing to attack any place that people may congregate is "to say we want an armed citizenry." By contrast, Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky clearly isn't interested…