Major Newspapers

There are predictable signs that after eight years of giving the problem inadequate attention and occasional ridicule, the business press has decided that federal budget deficits and the national debt are going to start to matter again. Gosh, I wonder why? The Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber was relatively subtle about it in a report on Uncle Sam's December and year-to-date budget deficits…

Demonstrating the power of fake news to influence uninformed people, just-elected Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire brought up a thoroughly discredited Washington Post story at the Senate confirmation hearing for Former General John Kelly. President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated Kelly to be the nation's next head of the Department of Homeland Security. Hassan brought up the…

It's still over a week before Donald Trump's inauguration, but Richard Cohen at the Washington Post already has a plan to get rid of him. The Post writer clearly believes that Trump — right now — fits the definition found in the 25th Amendment of the Constitution of someone who is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office," and could therefore be summarily removed without the…

A Thursday Washington Post editorial on the results of a House panel's investigation into what the paper called Planned Parenthood's "contributions" to "fetal tissue research" packs an astounding number of falsehoods into a mere five paragraphs.

In a Thursday item about urban gentrification at its "Upshot" blog which also appeared in its Friday print edition, Emily Badger at the New York Times took a gratuitous shot at Donald Trump over a mid-2016 statement which was true at the time — and, contrary to her insistence that it's now false, is still true. Badger, as currently seen at the Times, has written that "Mr. Trump claimed during…

Monday evening, just three days after causing an uproar by reporting that "Russian hackers penetrated (the) U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont," the Washington Post is now saying that "Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted Vermont utility, say people close to investigation." In other words (cue the late Glida Radner's famous Saturday Night Live character Emily…

UPDATE, January 3: "WashPost on Russian Connection to Vermont Utility Hack: Never Mind"  A not very funny thing happened to the Washington Post after its Juliet Eilperin and Adam Entous posted a story on Friday (now time-stamped as if it was Saturday) claiming in its headline that "Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont." The claim, according to the utility…

On Christmas evening, appearing in print on Sunday, December 26, Jeremy Peters at the New York Times pretended that the term "fake news" has only gained common currency very recently during the social media era. He also effectively contended that the establishment press holds ownership rights over the term, claiming that "conservative cable and radio personalities, top Republicans and even Mr. (…

In a column posted at NewsBusters on December 29, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. relayed personal anecdotal evidence indicating that "This Christmas Season Was Different." Based on his interactions and observations, Tyrrell believes that 2016 marked a change in "the way we talk about what is a major holy day for the majority of the American people." In his experience, people this year were far more…

The purveyors of what the establishment press likes to describe as "fake news" have nothing on the fake news the establishment press itself generates at the Obama administration's behest. For example, the Associated Press, in a very late paragraph in just one of its three reports on the topic Thursday, admitted that "Though the FBI and Homeland Security Department issued a joint report on '…

Steve McMahon, a Democratic Party member described as a media consultant, apparently either hasn't followed the news sufficiently since the presidential election, or is determined to rewrite history. My vote is with the latter. McMahon appeared on MSNBC on Tuesday. Before criticizing President-Elect Donald Trump's victory rallies as "incendiary, he outrageously claimed that Hillary Clinton has "…

Nate Silver has been the establishment press's designated polling hero since 2008, when he correctly predicted the outcome of that year's presidential contest in 49 of 50 states. He also had a great year in 2012, predicting all 50 states' presidential preference results. This year's election? Not so much. Donald Trump won, and Silver is not handling it well. In fact, he's violated one of the…

Andrew Ross Sorkin is considered a financial guru - a savant of all things business.  So how is he so very, very wrong about government teat specialist Elon Musk?: “Donald Trump: Please think about calling Elon Musk….Mr. Musk…(is) the real-life Tony Stark behind Tesla, the electric car company; SolarCity, the solar power provider; and SpaceX, the rocket company….” Actually, Elon Musk isn’t the…

News travels slowly into the Kansas City metropolitan area — or at least into the newsroom at the Kansas City Star. On Friday, the paper's Dave Helling produced a 950-word writeup on Monday's Electoral College voting. With all of the widely published news about Republican electors receiving death threats, all Helling had to report was a rumor: "One spouse of a Missouri elector claimed to know of…