What is it with this White House and publicly calling out conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh?

If you recall, back in January 2009 President Barack Obama told Republican congressional leaders to quit listening to Limbaugh if they wanted to get things done. It’s happened once again. During the White House daily press briefing on July 29, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took another couple of jabs Limbaugh – this time over the auto manufacturer bailout. In responding to a question concerning charges of "socialism," Gibbs went right after Limbaugh.

"Look, I’ll say this – Rush Limbaugh and others wanted to walk away," Gibbs said. "Rush Limbaugh and others saw a million people that work at these factories that worked at these part suppliers that supported communities and thought that we should all just walk away. The president didn’t think that walking away from a million jobs in these communities made a lot of economic sense."

But later during the briefing, Gibbs made the second Limbaugh jab more personal. 

"I’ll let those that sat in the cheap seats a year and a half ago and wanted to walk away from a million explain to every one of those workers why they made that decision and I think, better yet, ask them if they had that decision to make, if they would do it all over again – knowing that the $60 billion [the government loaned the auto industry] are on track to get paid back, knowing there’s a million people still employed, knowing that we are adding 55,000 jobs, that plants are working through what is normally a planned ‘summer shut-down,’ and that we are creating the jobs of the future, whether they thought the decision they made 16 or 18 months ago differed than that of the President of the United States and whether they still stand by it," Gibbs said. "And then you should ask Mr. Limbaugh, I don’t know what kind of car he drives but I can bet it’s not an F-150."

However, as Elizabeth Williamson pointed out for The Wall Street Journal pointed out, the F-150 truck is made by Ford, a company that didn’t get federal bailout funds.

On Thursday’s Newsroom, CNN’s Tony Harris played hardball with Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, the author of the SB1070 anti-illegal immigration law in the state, while not asking one tough question with his other guest, pro-illegal immigration activist Isabel Garcia. Surprisingly, Harris did finally explicitly identify the pro-open borders organization that Garcia leads [audio clips available here].

The CNN anchor brought on Pearce and Garcia to discuss a federal district justice’s Wednesday injunction against key provisions in the Arizona law. He identified the state senator as the "lawmaker who co-sponsored the immigration bill," and his other guest’s role as "co-chair of the Tucson-based Coalition for Human Rights." This contrasts with their earlier joint appearance with Harris on July 7, where the anchor merely identified Garcia as the "deputy public defender in Pima County, Arizona." He still neglected to mention this organization’s pro-illegal immigration stance (not to leave out their website, which features a logo incorporating the southwestern states into Mexico).

After getting each of their initial reactions and after the two argued over the legislation, Harris began pressing the state senator, reading part of Judge Susan Bolton’s decision, and left little doubt that he agreed with the injunction:

HARRIS: Let’s deal with some of the language. You mentioned the language in the judge’s decision yesterday. Let’s deal with a little bit of it, State Senator Pearce. Here’s some of that language from the judge- from Judge Bolton: ‘Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked.’ Isn’t the judge correct in that statement?

PEARCE: You know- you know-

HARRIS: In that statement, in that narrow statement.

PEARCE: No, absolutely not- we do that- hang on.

HARRIS: Okay.

PEARCE: We arrest people today for every crime based on probable cause. We put them in jail, they wait a hearing or they wait a trial. The judge- and they have a hearing. This is outrageous comment. She- and her other comments, you need to read it all- she also says in there that we’re afraid it would interfere with the priorities of the administration. There’s no place in law for that. It’s illegal. We have a right to enforce that. Our citizens have a constitutional right to expect those laws to be enforced, and in Arizona, we’re going to enforce them.

Later in the segment, following more back-and-forth between the two guests, Harris returned to playing hardball with Pearce:

HARRIS: State Senator Pearce, why continue to fight for this law? Why not push Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano- all right, you know her well- and push Congress to resource the enforcement effort on existing federal law? Why fight over this?

PEARCE: This is existing. That’s- and that’s a good point. This is just codifying federal law.

GARCIA: No, it’s not-

PEARCE: It’s against the law to enter. It’s against the law to remain. You must have your (unintelligible) with you if you’re a visitor- legally, even. You’ve got to carry your visa with you, your passport- your I-9. That’s exactly what this does. This codifies federal- that’s why we’ll win in the Supreme-

HARRIS: Why would you want the requirement in there? Why did you want the requirement in the language?

GARCIA: (unintelligible) The court said it was different classifications-

PEARCE: They have the authority under federal law, but they’ve ignored it. Sanctuary cities are illegal, but they’ve ignored it, and they have policies, you know- and the federal government doesn’t sue those cities that are in violation of the law, but they sue Arizona for protecting its citizens? That’s why. This is a good law. It codifies federal law. It takes the handcuffs off law enforcement.

Near the end of the segment, the CNN anchor asked one more question, while letting Garcia have "the last word" of the segment. Other than prompting her for her initial reaction to the injunction, Harris did not ask her any other questions.

HARRIS: You’ve said a couple of times here that the handcuffs come off of law enforcement. What does that mean? What does that mean? What are you saying?

PEARCE: It means sanctuary cities and policies-

HARRIS: Okay-

PEARCE: Policies that restrict law enforcement are illegal under federal law. They now will be illegal under state law. And the citizens- ‘we the people’- kind of a novel term- I like it. I believe our founders put it in there for a reason. Our citizens can sue their government if they violate the law. If they have a policy that restricts law enforcement at any degree- limits them or restricts them- it’s illegal, and the citizens will be able to sue up to a $5,000 fine per day for every day that policy remains in effect that’s in violation of the law. So this does have teeth-

HARRIS: All right-

GARCIA: They are going to be restricted from (unintelligible) our immigration law-

HARRIS: Isabel, let me give you the last word on this. Go ahead.

GARCIA: Senator Pearce is ignoring that the core of his law was to criminalize immigrants- undocumented people who did not have proper paperwork.

PEARCE: Illegal aliens- nothing to do with immigrants.

GARCIA: Well, it’s immigrants.

PEARCE: You know, let’s get it right. Get it right.

GARCIA: I don’t know who is an alien. I don’t know if Superman is an alien. (Pearce laughs) But I’m telling you, we’re talking about human beings, and you have a lot of nerve to attack the immigrants that have contributed mightily into this country-

PEARCE: Illegal aliens-

GARCIA: We don’t have 11 million undocumented immigrants because we give any freebies. They’re here because they have continued to contribute to our country. They have built the West, and they continue to contribute over and over and over- Social Security, suspense fund- I mean, all of it is very clear. Senator Pearce is a pretty hateful man-

PEARCE: You want me to give you the real facts?

GARCIA: And he’s very upset- very upset that his bill has been gutted.

CNN given Garcia the kid glove treatment during the majority of her appearances. Soledad O’Brien cast a sympathetic light on the pro-illegal immigration activist during her "Latin in America" miniseries in October 2009, while Suzanne Malveaux also omitted her stance on the issue, as well as the name of her organization, during an April 23, 2010 panel discussion. The only exception to this trend was during a October 22, 2009 segment, where anchor Anderson Cooper fairly asked about her participation a 2008 protest where she participated in the beating and decapitation of a pinata effigy of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona.

Roger Simon’s Wednesday morning column ("Journolist veers out of bounds"), an item Rush brought up on his show this afternoon, may be one of the most delusional items ever written by a journalist attempting to defend his profession.

Rich Noyes at NewsBusters covered one aspect of Simon’s column on Wednesday, namely the deliciously hypocritical outrage of NBC/MSNBC reporter Chuck Todd over how the Journolist scandal "has been keeping him up nights, and he’s especially frustrated that ‘the right’ would use it as ‘a sledgehammer’ against everyday journalists, ‘those of us who don’t practice advocacy journalism.’"

I’ll suggest that Simon’s rendition of journalistic history is at least as offensive as Todd’s reaction, in that it’s laughably and obviously false on so many fronts (numbered tags are mine):

… when I became a reporter, it was almost a holy calling. (1)

We really believed we were doing good. We informed the public and helped make democracy work. We exposed wrongdoing wherever we found it. (2)

… We were proud. We felt — I am just going to go ahead and say it — honorable.

There were wrongdoers. Fakers, plagiarists, those with private agendas who wished to slant the news. When found, they were often fired. Even when they were subjected to a lesser punishment, their sins were made clear as a lesson to the rest of us. (3)

Somewhere along the way, things have gone terribly wrong. Journalism has become a toy, an electronic plaything. I do not blame technology. (4)

Comments:

(1) — I’m really tempted to give Simon a pass on the "holy calling" characterization. After all, doing any job well, no matter what it is or how the public perceives, is a "holy calling." But holiness is a religious and a decidedly non-secular concept. Previous Media Research Center studies have shown that journalists in general aren’t just indifferent to religion. All too often, they’re openly hostile to it, as seen in Tim Graham’s 2006 report, "The Trashing of the Christ," where he concluded:

Network television news stars may boast at seminars that they are tough on everyone, "without fear or favor," but in real life, their devotion to secularism is almost religious in its intensity.

Especially since several surveys have shown that "Between 6 and 8 percent (of journalists) attended religious services regularly, a tiny fraction of the corresponding rate for the public at large," I’m entitled to a high degree of confidence that Simon’s "holy calling" characterization is not religion-based. Absent contrary evidence, Simon’s free pass is revoked. In any event, even if Simon is religious, the vast majority of his professional colleagues aren’t. Thus, his use of the word "holy" is wholly out of bounds.

(2) — I’ll supply just a sample here of wrongdoing found or suspected and not exposed or investigated:

• I’m still waiting for the hard-hitting coverage of blatantly obvious wrongdoing in the management of Barack Obama’s campaign donations made via plastic in 2008.
• I’m holding on for someone, anyone, to get out the year-by-year details, with the names of the people who orchestrated it and the dollar amounts involved, of the 15-year campaign of mortgage quality misrepresentation to the securities markets by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• On a very recent matter, I’m wondering when if ever we are going to find out whether Shirley and Charles Sherrod have actually done anything in the past year with their seven-figure Pigford settlement that would involve actual farming, or whether Mr. Sherrod’s infamous statement that "We must stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections" will be carried anywhere besides Fox News and center-right blogs.

Surely readers can supply a myriad of other examples.

(3) — Since their perpetration of the Rathergate phony documents scandal that was obviously ginned up and timed to have maximum impact on the 2004 presidential election, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes have been defended by people like Ted Koppel and others who should know better, and don’t.

(4) — It’s a good thing Simon doesn’t blame the existence of technology for the advent of Journolist. In proper historical perspective, as I showed last week (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) when the story first broke, story coordination by establishment journalists isn’t a recent tech phenomenon. Instead, it’s a time-honored tradition. Between the early 1990s and 2005, when Editor & Publisher exposed it and appeared not to recognize its impact, the Washington Post and New York Times shared at least their front-page headlines before putting them on paper. Someone should ask them if they’re still doing it today, and if it goes beyond headlines. The fact that WaPo was fine with having head Journolister Ezra Klein on board would seem to indicate that the words "journalism" and "ethics" don’t spend a lot of time together in conversations there.

All in all, because Simon is writing a column and not reporting straight news, his pathetic prose doesn’t quite rise (or actually sink) to the level of gems like the June 2008 item I called the "Worst AP Story Ever" ("Everything seemingly is spinning out of control"). But it’s pretty close.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

The Arizona immigration law on Thursday was the repeated subject of snide and belittling remarks by MSNBC’s “Morning Joe" panel. So, naturally, while discussing Wednesday’s federal court ruling, New York Time’s columnist Gail Collins continued the narrative.

Collins championed the federal government and sneered "You do not want state legislatures ruling these things," because basically, "They’re horrible. They’re all gerrymandered. They never get thrown out of office. They are all nuts!"

Collins, who does not hide her abhorrence towards local and state officials, recently discussed the subject in her April 29, 2010, article Red, Blue and Broke. In the column, she asserted that state legislatures are incompetent and that, "lately they have been freaking out with such alarming intensity that you’d think a mad scientist had surrounded state capitols with electrodes just to see what would come popping out."

A transcript for the July 29, 2010, segment is available here:

8:03:14 EDT

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Starting with Arizona. New immigration law is in effect this morning but without its most controversial sections. Yesterday, federal judge, Susan Bolton blocked key parts of the law including a provision allowing police to investigate a suspect’s immigration status. In addition, Bolton banned sections requiring immigrants to carry papers at all time and making it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places. Bolton sided with the Obama administration saying the law burdened lawfully present aliens because their liberty will be restricted and it will divert resources from the federal government’s other responsibilities and priorities. Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan brewer said she’ll file an appeal.

JAN BREWER: Obviously, it is a little bump in the road, I believe. And that, you know, until I get my whole arms around it, we don’t really exactly know where we’re going to go. We knew regardless of what happened today, of course, one side or the other side was going to appeal.

BRZEZINSKI: In a joint statement, Arizona Republican Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl said this, instead of wasting taxpayer resources filing a lawsuit against Arizona and complaining the law would be burdensome, the Obama administration should have focused its efforts on working with congress to provide the necessary resources to support the state in its efforts to act where the federal government has failed to take responsibility. Willie, obviously, there are rules to enforce. If they did, it might be the same issue.

WILLIE GEIST: Right. Gail, the Justice Department on the other side of this, interesting part of the debate, Republicans and the Governor there say sure, there are federal laws but they are not working. The Justice Department said we can not have a patch work of state, local, federal laws at the border and that really seems to be what it boils down to.

GAIL COLLINS:  It does. You know, whenever these things come up, the wisdom of the state versus the wisdom of the federal — have you looked at state legislatures, ever? I mean, they’re horrible. They’re all gerrymandered. They never get thrown out of office, they are all nuts. You do not want state legislatures ruling these things.

BRZEZINSKI: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Jerry Brown was known as "Governor Moonbeam" in the 1970s, and ran for president from the left three times (to the left of Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, and to the left of Bill Clinton in 1992). But now that he’s running for governor again, Time magazine is trying to convince its readers he’s really a centrist. In the August 2 magazine, reporter Karl Taro Greenfeld helpfully laid out Brown’s case that he’s a penny-pinching budget hawk:

He was never as eccentric as his Governor Moonbeam reputation would suggest. He was a budget hawk before that term was fashionable: he rejected the governor’s mansion to live in a Sacramento apartment, was chauffered in a in a Plymouth Galaxy instead of a limousine and declined his own pay raises.

That’s a weird passage: rejecting all the ritzy trappings of power is eccentric. But offering these small, symbolic poses does not make you a budget hawk. In trying to score Republican opponent Meg Whitman’s ads, Factcheck.org recounted a 1992 story from the liberal New York Times:

Because the state constitution grants the governor the power to veto appropriations, Mr. Brown was eventually able to slash $2 billion from various budgets. But overall, state spending increased by nearly 120 percent during the Brown years after Proposition 13.

The New York Times story channeled liberal complaints that although Brown opposed Prop 13 — a popular property-tax cut revolt — he should have figured out a less dramatic tax-relief plan. The tax cut-hating national media repeatedly blamed Prop 13 for everything wrong in California — including collapsed highway overpasses after the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. 

Time’s Greenfeld (whose own website touts him as a "longtime writer and editor for The Nation" as well as Time) also brought in Brown’s wife (and campaign worker) Anne Gust to attempt to dispel the leftist Moonbeam image and project him as a centrist on taxes:

"That was all a bit overstated. He was very focused on the environment, the budget. He knew that budget inside and out, to the point where it drove people crazy. And he never raised [income and property] taxes," Gust says.  

Gust told Time "he never raised taxes." So why did Time add the qualifying brackets instead of suggest that Gust was lying about Brown’s record? Let’s go back to Factcheck.org: when Whitman claimed Brown raised taxes by billions of dollars, they agreed that was factual:

The ad’s charge that Brown supported "billions in new taxes" as governor — $7 billion according to a graphic that appears on screen — rests on a quarter-cent increase in the state’s 6 percent sales tax that he proposed in 1981, and a bill he signed that year that raised the state tax on gas by 2 cents a gallon. The sales tax hike, the "first tax he has ever proposed," according to a 1981 article in The Economist, was estimated to raise $5 billion over 10 years to help fund local police departments and finance an expansion of the state’s prison system. And The Los Angeles Times said that the gas tax increase — estimated to bring in $2.5 billion in revenue — was implemented "to keep the state’s highway system from going broke."

Time readers deserve overall numbers on taxes and spending, not bizarre claims that you’re a "budget hawk" because you refused to live in the governor’s mansion — which the state continued to pay for, regardless. Time looks like they’re more interested in reinventing the image of Democrats rather than being factual with readers.

“Anger in the streets and we’re there for the protests,” ABC anchor Diane Sawyer teased in making reaction from a few opposed to Arizona’s immigration enforcement efforts her top story on Thursday night. She led: “Emboldened by a judge’s rebuke of that law yesterday, hundreds of opponents of the crackdown took to the streets today. But the state’s unyielding Governor stood by the law.” ABC’s Barbara Pinto touted over video which included a protester waving a Che Guevara flag:

Demonstrations started at dawn – hundreds of protesters, dozens of arrests, tempers flaring. Tensions are running high here outside this jail, where protesters have gathered and it’s turned into a standoff with sheriff’s deputies who are trying to push their way out of the building. Demonstrations were loud, disruptive, but mostly peaceful.

After a clip of a woman complaining “Joe Arpaio has picked the easy targets, the day laborers. Let’s go after the real criminals and stop wasting our money,” Pinto fretted: “This afternoon, Sheriff Arpaio launched one of his controversial crime raids, targeting illegal immigrants.” She concluded with a warning: “Tonight’s rally intended to send a clear signal to lawmakers and to Governor Brewer from those who think even a partial law is too much.”

World News followed Pinto with a short bio piece on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, but it didn’t offer any points in favor of the state’s law.

Championing left-wing protests in Arizona is nothing new for ABC’s World News. The newscast did it back on May 1 and again on May 30 when David Muir declared: “Day of outrage, anger on the streets of Phoenix and across this country tonight,” pleading: “Will an army of protesters be heard?”

Meanwhile, on Thursday’s NBC Nightly News reporter George Lewis centered a story on how plenty of resources are already focused on catching illegals with more help coming:

The question is how much border security is enough. There are 20,000 border patrol agents now. That’s twice as many as there were nine years ago. They are a major presence on the streets of Nogales and soon they’ll be joined by the National Guard…

Wednesday night: “ABC Heralds ‘Relief Replaced Dread, Hope Replaced Fear’ While NBC Fears ‘Backlash’ from ‘Angry’ Arizonans.”

From May 1:

Nets Celebrate May Day Pro-Illegal Immigrant Protests, Barely Mention Shot Deputy

“Angry backlash from coast to coast,” ABC’s David Muir teased Saturday’s World News, “huge rallies across this country tonight against that new controversial immigration law.”

ABC reporter Eric Horng touted how “this is the fifth year in a row that nationwide immigration rallies have been held on May 1st, but this year emotions are particularly raw. They came by the thousands. A sea of demonstrators armed with a message.” He soon claimed “the state has been lampooned by comedians” and as evidence played the very same clip from the left wing Jon Stewart as had NBC’s Andrea Mitchell earlier in the week when she asserted Arizona had become “a laughing stock.”

From May 30:

ABC and NBC Champion Illegal Alien Cause: ‘Will an Army of Protesters Be Heard?’

Another pro-illegal alien protest and, once again, the networks champion the cause. Four weeks after the broadcast network evening shows trumpeted May Day marches against Arizona’s effort to enforce federal law, another round of marches prompted ABC and NBC on Saturday night to push the left-wing cause.

“Day of outrage, anger on the streets of Phoenix and across this country tonight,” ABC anchor David Muir declared, pleading: “Will an army of protesters be heard?” Reporter Jeremy Hubbard began his story for World News: “In their most massive numbers yet, a deluge of adversaries rally and rail against what could soon be the law of the land in Arizona.”

The lead story on the Thursday, July 29 ABC World News:

DIANE SAWYER: Good evening. Arizona’s immigration law is on hold. The protests are not. Emboldened by a judge’s rebuke of that law yesterday, hundreds of opponents of the crackdown took to the streets today. But the state’s unyielding governor stood by the law and filed an appeal. Barbara Pinto is in Phoenix tonight. She’s been there all day, in the middle of the stormy showdown.

BARBARA PINTO [jpg of Pinto]: Protesters descended on Phoenix, despite a judge’s ruling to delay enforcement of most of the state’s new crackdown on illegal immigrants. Demonstrations started at dawn – hundreds of protesters, dozens of arrests, tempers flaring. Tensions are running high here outside this jail, where protesters have gathered and it’s turned into a standoff with sheriff’s deputies who are trying to push their way out of the building. Demonstrations were loud, disruptive, but mostly peaceful.

LIZ HOURICAN, PROTESTER: Joe Arpaio has picked the easy targets, the day laborers. Let’s go after the real criminals and stop wasting our money.

PINTO: This afternoon, Sheriff Arpaio launched one of his controversial crime raids, targeting illegal immigrants.

PINTO TO ARPAIO: Anything different today?

SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO, MARICOPA COUNTY: Well, we’ve got this other problem at the jails right now. As far as the operation, business as usual.

PINTO: Starting today, it’s a state crime for anyone to transport illegal immigrants. That didn’t seem to stop these day laborers. They were still getting picked up. They told us they’re no more afraid today than they were yesterday. Outside Home Depot looking for work, we met Rene. He’s been in this country illegally for 20 years.

PINTO TO RENE: Have the police been by here this morning?

RENE, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT: No, no. We don’t see the police. There’s no police around here.

PINTO: Now, police and protesters are gathered here at the capital. Tonight’s rally intended to send a clear signal to lawmakers and to Governor Brewer from those who think even a partial law is too much.

CNBC.com’s Jeff Cox needs to brush up on his financial history.

He believes that George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts affected only the highest-earning taxpayers, i.e., those who gross $250,000 a year of more. He’s wrong.

Here’s part of what Cox posted this morning (erroneous statement is bolded; HT to Mark Levin in his Thursday broadcast):

Letting Bush Tax Cuts Die Would Kill Recovery: Analysts

The nascent US economic recovery would be halted in 2011 if Congress fails to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, analysts at Deutsche Bank said.

The cuts were enacted in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush and covered those earning more than $250,000, but they are set to expire at the end of this year.

Deutsche said the drag on gross domestic product should they lapse could be as much as 1.5 percent, with the more likely impact at 1.1 percent.

The impact would be worse, the analysts said, if Congress fails to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was enacted in 1969 to make sure rich people pay taxes but was never indexed for inflation, and thus is now hitting middle-income workers.

… The opinion runs counter to that of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who said earlier this week that allowing the cuts to expire would not cause the economy to re-enter recession. The administration has proposed letting most of the tax cuts stand, but eliminating the ones for the top-tier earners.

Deutsche compared the situation to Japan in the 1990s, when the government let tax cuts expire and cut stimulus, leading to another leg down in the recession and ensuring the nation’s "lost decade" of no economic growth.

While the US is headed toward unmanageable debt levels, now is not the time to start tightening the money supply, the analysts said.

It wouldn’t have taken much of an effort for Cox to learn the truth. In fact, it took me about 5 minutes to find the following items (too bad documenting them doesn’t go as quickly):

• From CBS News (May 28, 2003; "Bush Signs Tax Cuts Into Law") — You could tell that the network’s Jarrett Murphy wasn’t happy with having to report it, telling readers that "… Mr. Bush said the tax legislation will provide relief to 136 million American taxpayers." It’s as if there was no reason to believe the president.
• From the Tax Foundation (June 21, 2007) — "… the Bush tax cuts were mainly across-the-board cuts in tax rates …"
• USA Today (May 19, 2003; three-paragraph excerpt from "Bush’s drive for tax cuts fueled by his principles") — Reporters Judy Keen; Laurence McQuillan quote Bush as saying in part: ""Across-the-board tax relief does not happen often in Washington, D.C."

Cox wouldn’t even have had to go to Google or Google’s news archive to learn how wrong he is. More recently, as in two weeks ago, Bloomberg briefly explained what the Bush tax cuts did in a report that was primarily about how Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (sigh) wants everyone’s taxes to go up next year ("Greenspan Calls for Congress to Let All Bush Tax Cuts Expire"):

… Bush tax cuts that passed in 2001 and 2003 gave middle- income earners a 10 percent rate on couples’ first $14,000 in income; subsidies for college expenses, a higher child-care credit and relief from the marriage penalty. Keeping those and other reductions for the 130 million households earning less than $250,000 would cost about $300 billion a year, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

The Bloomberg item also notes that "President Barack Obama campaigned for election in 2008 on a promise of extending the Bush tax reductions for families earning up to $250,000 while eliminating the cuts for higher- income Americans, a position also embraced by most congressional Democrats." Of course this means that many other Americans earning below that amount received tax cuts.

This is a pretty blatant error, especially considering that it’s from a business network. Tighten things up, guys and gals.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Chris Stocker lives with Type 1 diabetes in south Florida. He shares his thoughts and struggles on his blog, The Life of a Diabetic. Chris has faced some tough times, including missing the recent diabetes Social Media Summit because he was down on his luck, which just broke my heart. Having been hit with diabetes [...]

Ginger Vieira kind of blows me away.  She has lived with Type 1 diabetes and Celiac disease for over 11 years. And she holds 14 national, drug-tested powerlifting records and the Vermont state record for the female bench press. She’s recently established herself as a cognitive Health & Chronic Illness Life Coach at her new [...]

Amy Johnson, now age 18, of Kansas City, Missouri, is the American diabetes Association’s 2010 National Youth Advocate — which has got to be very exciting for any young person. She’s spending this year traveling around the country giving talks to encourage youth and adults alike “to get involved in the fight against diabetes.” The [...]