LAT Buries the Lede: Calif. Rail Authority Tried to Intimidate Consult

May 11th, 2014 10:33 AM
The estimated cost of the initial segment of California's bullet train, Golden State Governor Jerry Brown's pet project, has (excuse the pun) just shot up from $6.19 billion to $7.13 billion. If this is the only overrun encountered in this opening phase, which would be atypical, and if the California High Speed Rail Authority has similar experiences during the remainder of the project, assuming…

Contemptible: AP Story Again Keeps Lois Lerner's Name Out of Headline

May 8th, 2014 2:07 PM
Once again, as it did a month ago in two separate stories, the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, left the name of Lois Lerner, the former IRS official who ran its section on tax-exempt organizations, out of its headline and opening paragraph. This time, for good measure, AP reporter Stephen Ohlemacher didn't reveal Lerner's name until Paragraph 3. Before getting to Ohlemacher'…

Bitter AP Focuses On Politics and Not Free-Speech Import of Wis. 'John

May 7th, 2014 3:07 PM
In his "analysis" on Tuesday's U.S. District Court ruling which called a halt to "a secret investigation into his 2012 recall campaign and conservative groups that supported" Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican Governor, Scott Bauer at the Associated Press basically gave away what the prosecution's agenda really has been all about. It really hasn't been about cleaning up political campaigns…

Politico Mag Natl. Editor Frets Benghazi 'Pseudo-Scandal' May Keep Hil

May 5th, 2014 1:12 PM
Michael Hirsh is the recently named National Editor at Politico Magazine, an effort which turning is out to be to the left of the crumbling Time Magazine and the for-now defunct Newsweek. One of Hirsh's career lowlights — he probably thinks it's a highlight — is his December 2008 contention that President George W. Bush having a shoe thrown at him in Iraq "was somehow appropriate." Lest there…

AP Pair Create a Math Problem In Projecting 2014 Growth of 'Nearly Thr

May 4th, 2014 9:56 AM
In a Friday afternoon dispatch issued in the wake of the government's jobs report earlier that day, Christopher Rugaber and Josh Boak at the Associated Press wrote that "most economists ... forecast a strong rebound in economic growth - to a 3.5 percent annual rate in the current April-June quarter. And growth should reach nearly 3 percent for the full year, up from 1.9 percent in 2013, they…

Establishment Press Has Virtually Ignored DOJ's Pernicious 'Operation

May 2nd, 2014 11:59 PM
In June 2006, the New York Times, over strident pleas not to from the Bush 43 administration, published details of how counterterrorism officials were "tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry." According to the administration, the program had "helped in the capture of the most wanted Qaeda…

Ho Hum: $6.2B in Improper Payments at USDA, Three Straight Years of Le

April 30th, 2014 7:17 PM
When several members of Congress set out in the early 1990s to improve fiscal reporting and internal controls in the federal government, one thing they certainly had a right to expect is that the press would report on lapses as embarrassments, and that otherwise nonchalant or reluctant bureaucrats would figure out that it would be in their best interest to tighten their ships. It hasn't…

Politico's Hounshell: No One 'Credible' or 'Authoritative' Has Shown T

April 30th, 2014 11:15 AM
NewsBusters commenter "bkeyser" at my Benghazi-related post last night pointed to a tweet from Politico Magazine Deputy Editor Blake Hounshell that is at the same time breathtakingly ignorant and astonishingly insolent. Reacting to the contents of Benghazi-related emails finally obtained and published by Judicial Watch, Hounshell asked, "Can you point me to a credible, authoritative story…

Not News at AP, NYT or Politico: Benghazi Emails Showing WH Orchestrat

April 29th, 2014 11:07 PM
This afternoon (late morning Pacific Time), Roger Simon at PJ Media had several reactions to the latest developments in the Benghazi saga, as new evidence surfaced of a White House "effort to insulate President Barack Obama from the attacks that killed four Americans." Simon's press-related assertion: "We will now see if there is even a figment of honesty in our mainstream media ..." Though…

AP's Crutsinger, As Dismal First-Quarter GDP Report Looms: Happy Days

April 29th, 2014 3:24 PM
At the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Martin Crutsinger has pretty much proven that he's been on some kind of workout regimen. If he wasn't, he couldn't possibly have carried so much Obama administration water in his 1:45 p.m. report on the state of the economy (saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) as he did. Crutsinger's message: Pay no…

AP Report on Toyota's HQ Move From Calif. to Texas Downplays Taxes, Re

April 28th, 2014 11:51 PM
The Associated Press's lengthy Monday evening treatment of Toyota's decision to move its U.S. headquarters and consolidate many of its North American operations in Metro Dallas is reasonably good in spots. But Gillian Flaccus and Michael R. Blood were unduly selective in reporting Torrance, California Mayor Frank Scotto's reaction to the news that his town would be losing several thousand jobs…

Press Ignores Harvard Prof Alleging 'Astonishing Interference' in Late

April 28th, 2014 5:38 PM
Professor Robert N. Stavins at Harvard's Kennedy School hardly seems like a major climate change/global warming boat-rocker. At his blog last year, he described climate change as "the ultimate global commons problem," where "international, if not global, cooperation is essential." Commenting on climate talks in Doha, Qatar in December 2012, he saw the role of the Harvard Project on Climate…

At Politico, David Nather's Cliven Bundy Guilt-By-Association Game Blo

April 28th, 2014 1:13 PM
Politico's David Nather must have thought he was so clever. Here's how he opened a recent column: "It can happen to anyone, right? You rally behind a guy ... and suddenly he’s spewing racist bile and boy, does it splash on your face." Yes, I left out a few words, and I'll get to that. But before providing them, the quote just rendered would apply to how those at Los Angeles branch of the NAACP…

Grimm News: OFA Touts Climate Change 'Breakthrough': A Republican Cong

April 27th, 2014 10:37 PM
A Friday afternoon email I received from Organizing For Action, aka BarackObama.com, aka the group whose mission in life is to support whatever President Obama wants them to support, took me by surprise. The email, which is replicated at an OFA post, told readers that "There's one fewer climate change denier in Congress." I figured that the congressman who flipped almost had to be a…