Cutting the Military Budget Is a Problem…for the Left?
The Washington Post presents a “paradox” wrapped in a “conundrum” inside a “quandary”–all on top of a big heaping of right-wing policy advice for the left.
David Stockman’s American Economic Horror Story
Former Reagan budget director David Stockman is outraged–outraged I tell you!–by the Federal Reserve increasing the money supply. In a lengthy op-ed on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Review (3/31/13), he condemns “the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve” with their “egregious flood of phony money” and “a radical, uncharted […]
FAIR TV: Sequester Spin, Iranian vs. U.S. Propaganda, Stop & Frisk Factcheck
This week we take a look at how the Washington Post challenges some sequester spin. And CBS pokes fun at Iranian claims about Argo–but are the Iranians right that Argo is fiction? Plus George Will has some thoughts about stop-and-frisk policing.
‘Sparing’ the 98 Percent—by Taxing Them
When congressional Republicans and the White House agreed to their long- awaited “fiscal cliff” tax deal early on January 1, the news media celebrated it as a compromise that raised taxes on the rich while protecting everyone else. As NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell (12/31/12) put it, negotiators had crafted “a genuine compromise on taxes [where] […]
Bill O’Reilly, Big Government and Racism
It’s not as if Bill O’Reilly has never uttered things reasonable people might consider racist. But the fact that he seems to believe that the White House is destroying the economy in order to provide free stuff to people of color is taking things to an entirely different level.
Sometimes David Brooks Gets So Mad He Can’t Write Straight
When David Brooks writes that Obama “declines to come up with a proposal” other than raising taxes on the rich, and in reality he has proposed a plan, that merits a correction, right? Maybe. But when you’re a New York Times columnist, apparently you get to play by a different rulebook.
Milbank Looks Forward to ‘Bleak Times’ Ahead
Why do we need “serious spending cuts”? Milbank assumes the answer is so obvious that it need not be explained–everyone knows the more cuts, the better. All the serious people, anyway.
The Pentagon’s Budget Crunch: No Dissenting Views
The Washington Post had a whole piece devoted to yet another round of complaints from military leaders–without a single comment from anyone who might take the view that cutting military spending would not be such a disaster.
A Beltway Villager’s Bad Advice for Obama
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza wrote a piece giving Barack Obama some advice on what to say in his State of the Union address. The article almost reads like a parody of Beltway punditry.
PBS and the Poor Pentagon
When the PBS NewsHour took a look at military spending cuts, the segment unfortunately presented a very narrow view of the issue–one that mimics the kind of coverage we see elsewhere in the corporate media.
David Gregory: Obama Should Trick Republicans by Being More Like Them
When reporters give strategic advice, they tend to reveal what they consider preferable policy goals. A discussion of taxes and spending on Meet the Press revealed a lot about host David Gregory’s worldview.
Tom Brokaw and the Not-So-Rich Wealthy
The December 30 episode of Meet the Press was, of course, devoted to discussion of the “fiscal cliff.” And NBC veteran Tom Brokaw was on hand to recycle some of the most tiresome talking points about wealth and taxes.
John Boehner–Philosopher?
Are John Boehner’s ideas about tax cuts evidence of his “philosophy”? Or are they just misleading?
CEO Evening News? Tell CBS Their “Fiscal Cliff” Reporting Needs Balance
FAIR’s new alert takes CBS Evening News to task for relying heavily on CEOs associated with the corporate-backed Fix the Debt campaign in their recent reporting about the so-called “fiscal cliff.” If you’re sending an email to CBS, please consider pasting your message in the comments section below.
You Think You’re Getting Social Security But You’re Not, Says Multimillionaire Banker
What should the U.S. do about the so-called “fiscal cliff”? Who better to ask than Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, “one of the world’s most influential bankers”? That’s what CBS Evening News must have been thinking, anyway, when they did a segment last night (11/19/12) all about Blankfein’s opinions. CBS‘s Scott Pelley began: “When we […]
FAIR TV: False Gaza Timelines, Failing at the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ and David Gregory’s CEO Story
This week: What do corporate media get wrong about the “cycle of violence” in Gaza? Is there really such a thing as a “fiscal cliff”? And David Gregory says Obama’s big mistake was not having an economy-boosting event with CEOs. You mean like the one he had a week after being inaugurated in 2009? Take […]
Fiscal Cliff Not a Cliff? Tell That to USA Today
Some commentators and journalists have pointed out the metaphor for the impending tax increases and spending cuts in 2013–the “fiscal cliff”–is highly misleading, and probably intentionally so. There is no way to reverse course when you fall off a cliff; you are plummeting towards the ground, making a terrible mess upon impact. Thus the brakes […]
CEOs Tout Austerity—Without Being ‘Ideological’ About It
This passage from Meet the Press (10/14/12) says a lot about how middle-of-the-road elite journalists think about fiscal issues. Here’s NBC veteran Tom Brokaw and host David Gregory: BROKAW: I was just going to say, I talked to a lot of major business leaders who want Romney to get elected, but almost to a man […]
Romney: I Like Being Able to Fire Journalists Asking Me Questions
Politicians should not be able to pull the plug on the public’s media—PBS needs a dedicated trust fund that can’t be used as a political prop by candidates.
NYT on Obama’s Deficit Talk: Get a Load of Brainiac
The New York Times‘ Jackie Calmes has a piece yesterday (9/26/12) on Obama’s failure to rein in the budget deficit. The big problem is that Obama’s explanation is apparently hard to follow: Four years ago, Barack Obama campaigned for president on a promise to cut annual federal budget deficits in half by the end of […]
