Wire Services/Media Companies

For the "Freedom for me, and not for thee" file: Donald Trump decided to cancel a campaign rally in Chicago tonight "due to safety concerns after protesters packed the arena where it was to take place." An Associated Press report time-stamped at 10:12 p.m., like so many AP reports in similar circumstances before subsequent revisions "clean things up," so to speak, has some elements of balance,…

Actual sales at the wholesale level in January, as reported today by the Census Bureau, fell sharply from December. That's to be expected. But this time was different — really different, because the drop was to a level lower than January 2012, i.e., four years ago. Four press outlets which covered today's release either missed (or ignored) this shocking news. They only told readers about what…

Score another blow for (allegedly) "unintended consequences." A proposed 33-page rule applying to investment advisers emanating from the Department of Labor would redefine the fiduciary relationship between investment advisers and their clients investing for retirement, which is the predominant objective of most investors. According to the Wall Street Journal, the rule "could be released as soon…

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan died today. The Associated Press's Christopher Weber, in an otherwise predictably passive-aggressive obituary, got one thing right: "The Reagans' mutual devotion over 52 years of marriage was legendary." How nice of him to acknowledge that now. The fact is that while it was visible during Ronald Reagan's presidency, everyone with eyes to see could recognize the…

The press is mostly thrilled over yesterday's Employment Situation Summary from the government, which reported that the unemployment rate stayed at 4.9 percent and that the economy added 242,000 seasonally adjusted payroll jobs. President Barack Obama took the opportunity to take what CNBC's Jeff Cox described as "a victory lap ... in Friday remarks to the media." Well, why not? Obama was secure…

To believe what the Associated Press's Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin wrote yesterday about February's auto sales, you have to believe that last month's car buyers were either: "a) affected with vertigo; dizzy"; or b) "frivolous and lighthearted; impulsive; flighty." That's because they claimed that in February, "consumers - giddy from Super Bowl ads - returned to showrooms after a snowy January…

It appears that there's an effort underway to expand the definition of "deniers" beyond the realm of climate change/"global warming." Ideally, in leftists' minds, a "denier" would be "anyone who doesn't accept leftist dogma without reservations." That definition would apparently extend to anything relating to the economy, if Associated Press White House reporter and dedicated Barack Obama…

At the Associated Press, in a Friday morning writeup, the wire service's headline writers and reporter Martin Crutsinger demonstrated extraordinary auditory powers. The headline writers somehow heard the entire U.S. economy start the year off "with a bang." Meanwhile, Crutsinger, continuing to earn his designated title of "worst economics writer" given by Kevin Williamson at National Review…

Two categories of news the press has studiously avoided during the Obama era came together this week, causing it to (in my view) proactively decide to ignore emotional congressional testimony which should have been front-page news almost everywhere. The first is their virtually complete disinterest in reporting on congressional hearings. The list is longer than can be recounted here, but…

The simmering feud between the Democratic Party establishment and leftists who believe that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has acted more like "Democrats Nominating Clinton" than a genuine political party presenting viable alternatives to Hillary Clinton, visibly erupted today. This morning, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard resigned her position as Vice Chair at the DNC and…

532,000 people voted in the South Carolina Democratic Party presidential primary in 2008. In this year's primary, completed yesterday, only 370,000 did. In the meantime, the state's pool of eligible voters increased by about 8 percent. Thus, turnout in this year's Democratic primary in the Palmetto State, down by just over 30 percent in absolute terms, was down by about 35 percent on a…

In August 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, as paraphrased in a New York Times story, "not to use signing statements to undermine legislation passed by Congress," and "called Mr. Bush’s frequent use of such statements an abuse of his power." On Wednesday, Obama issued another signing statement — there have now been over 30 during his presidential tenure — to put a thumb in…

Conservative and center-right columnists often have to do far more digging than their liberal counterparts, simply because overwhelmingly left-leaning beat journalists, aka "Democrats with bylines," provide such unbalanced reporting on current events on a daily basis. Fortunately, the Washington Post's Marc Thiessen did the necessary work by rummaging through available information about federal…

The political career of California State Senator Leland Yee, a Democrat who had been running for Secretary of State, came to an abrupt end in March 2014 when the strident gun-control advocate was arrested and charged with "six counts of depriving the public of honest services and one count of conspiracy to traffic in guns without a license." Last week, Yee, who pled guilty last year to "one…