Unemployment

Yesterday's news that the economy added 248,000 payroll jobs, while the official unemployment rate dropped to 5.9 percent, generated the expected hosannahs from much of the establishment press. One utterly predictable such writeup came from the Associated Press. The headline at Christopher Rugaber's report, "SURGE OF HIRING CUTS US JOBLESS RATE TO 5.9 PCT," utterly ignored the fact that much of…

Following President Obama’s speech on the economy on Thursday, the PBS NewsHour offered a 48-second news brief on the subject, in which co-anchor Gwen Ifill offered no opposing viewpoint to the President’s claim in his speech that “by every measure, the country is better off than when he took office.” The show then played a soundbite of the President, in which he lamented that “millions of…

National Journal’s Ron Fournier was apparently among those who endured President Obama's appearance on "60 Minutes" this evening. Fournier was able to succinctly summarize the contents of Obama's interview with Steve Kroft, the network's designated softball pitcher, in a tweet appearing shortly after its conclusion (HT Twitchy):

Debbie has been caught doing it again. Early this month, Democratic National Committe Chairmwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz went after Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, claiming that he "has given women the back of his hand," and that "Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are ... grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back." I wrote at the time that Wasserman-Schultz's supposed "…

The real problem with Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke's "jobs plan," the detailed version of which appears to be no longer available at her campaign's web site, isn't its plagiarized material. It's the content. The presence of certain obviously wrong facts and patently pathetic assertions indicates that Ms. Burke, a successful entrepreneur who one would think should have…

CNN's Twitter account on Thursday boosted a Rolling Stone article that hyped the far-left Occupy Wall Street movement's latest efforts. The social media post touted, "Think #OccupyWallStreet is dead? Think again. This short-lived occupation is still fighting for five key issues," and linked to Rebecca Nathanson's Wednesday piece on the "five campaigns that OWS-inspired groups have continued to…

CNBC's Dan Mangan, last seen at NewsBusters claiming that the American people want politicians to just "shut up about Obamacare," is out with a column today reacting to the Kaiser Family Foundation's latest Affordable Care Act-related polling effort. Sarah Ferris at the Hill also reviewed the poll, and has two primary messages for readers. First, "support for ObamaCare continues to fall." Second…

The Obama administration-prepared koolaid delivered to the Associated Press's economics writers on Monday must have been extraordinarily concentrated. How else can you explain how the AP's Christopher Rugaber could have written the following — "The U.S. job market has steadily improved by pretty much every gauge except ... Pay" — without doubling over with laughter? No, Chris. The reason pay…

Former Florida Republican Governor Charlie won the state's Democratic gubernatorial primary tonight. In his writeup on Crist's defeat of an overmatched challenger, the Politico's James Hohmann wrote that "Only four years ago Crist was a governor who had run for office as a rock-ribbed conservative." That wording is a bit too clever. One might argue that Hohmann is merely claiming that Crist…

It takes a special man to cram so much wrong into a mere 342 words.  Or an Old Grey Lady. The New York Times’ utterly ridiculous Editorial Board recently as one addressed Title II Internet regulatory Reclassification and Network Neutrality - and they did so in utterly ridiculous fashion.  They either have absolutely no idea what any of this is - or they are lying through their printing…

This morning, the Census Bureau, in its advance report on retail sales, revealed that seasonally adjusted July sales were "virtually unchanged" from June. Expectations were for a 0.2 percent gain, supposedly with "solid upside" potential. Oops. June's result stayed at its previously reported 0.2 percent increase. Reuters did the "U-word" honors this time out: "U.S. retail sales unexpectedly…

President Obama is more "forceful" and "stubborn" about playing golf than he is about pushing through his policy agenda.  That was Dana Milbank's take on today's Morning Joe.   As Joe Scarborough described it, earlier this week the normally left-leaning Milbank enjoyed a "12-minute honeymoon" with conservatives after his Washington Post column called Obama's decision to go golfing while the…

Released on Friday morning, the latest jobs report from the Labor Department touted a net growth of 209,000 jobs in July. On Friday evening, the report was promoted on all three of the major broadcast networks, ranging from news briefs by ABC and NBC to a full report from CBS. While there was plenty of praise and even an ounce of positive news, the networks mostly failed to note that the…

In a Thursday report on why many Americans are still unimpressed with the U.S. job market, Associated Press reporters Christopher Rugaber and Josh Boak made a rare admission that "Finding a steady full-time job has become harder" than it was before the recession. The AP pair then contended that "the trend might also reflect a lasting shift among restaurants and coffee shops," but found an "…