It is just a fact that the mainstream media treat the exact same economic data dramatically differently when hated Republicans are in the White House versus their beloved Democrats:
I wrote an article on that back in 2009. It is amazing that with the same economic numbers, the media can demonize the side they ideologically hate and excuse the side they ideologically worship.
A couple of cartoons to depict the overwhelming media bias we constantly see from the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party:
And:
And one of the biggest keys to this unrelenting media bias is revealed in the use of the media’s favorite adjective (“unexpected”) and/or their favorite adverb (“unexpectedly”) in excusing Obama for his economic mess.
Forexpros – The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose unexpectedly, hitting the highest level since late November, official data showed on Thursday. [44] The number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance rose by 24,000 last week from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration reports. There were 399,000 such claims. [33]
“The retail sales and unemployment claims numbers remind us that the path to full recovery will be filled with lots of potholes,” said Joel Naroff, of Naroff Economic Advisors. [15] One-tenth of one percent increase in retail sales! “The gain was enough to push sales to a record level for 2011. It was the largest annual increase in more than a decade.” That’s not good news. (laughing) It’s 0.1%. Now, I think to put this in perspective, “The week’s unemployment applications with seasonal adjustments is disappointing. [23]
Retail sales climbed at the weakest pace in seven months in December and first-time claims for jobless benefits moved higher last week, signs the economic recovery remains shaky despite a pick-up in growth. [7] The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits rose by 19,000 in the week ended Dec. 31 to 3.63 million. [14] Overall, 3,628,000 people were getting jobless benefits during the week ended Dec. 31, an increase of 19,000 from the preceding week, the department said. [43]
About 4.1 million unemployed Americans collect jobless benefits every week, down from about 4.8 million a year ago as the countrys sluggish economy, the worlds largest, has regained some strength. [8] Last year the economy added about 1.6 million jobs, a 50% increase from 2009. According to a survey by the AP, economists are expecting the economy to add 1.9 million jobs this year. [1] The economy gained 1.6 million jobs last year, up from 940,000 in 2010. Economists forecast roughly 1.9 million jobs will be added this year, according to a survey by The Associated Press. [38]
As the Los Angeles Times’ Don Lee reported last week, the economy still has 6 million fewer jobs than in December 2007, when the recession started and the jobless rate was 5%. At least one retailer is hiring now. [30] Even with the gains, much needs to be done toward recovering the 8.75 million jobs lost as a result of the recession that ended in June 2009. The economy “expanded at a modest to moderate pace” from late November through the end of December, while most industries saw “limited permanent hiring,” the Federal Reserve said in its Beige Book anecdotal business survey released yesterday. [14]
Despite looking a little better in previous weeks, the jobs market has a long road to recovery. The recession in 2008 wiped out 8.7 million jobs and there are around 13 million unemployed people in the U.S. That doesn’t even count the millions who gave up looking for a job. [1] I’d pass laws that say if you want to sell your goods in the U.S. then X% of your manufacturing cost of goods sold must be incurred in the U.S. This is what Bush I did for the Japanese car makers, and that worked pretty well for the U.S. I would also remove 95% of the tax loopholes (corporate and individual) and lower the overall tax rate (revenue neutral is my goal). Telling companies to be good people and manufacture in the U.S. even though their competitors use cheaper foreign labor isn’t a realistic approach because the U.S. companies would be at a price disadvantage and wind up going out of business (and the remaining U.S. workers will lose their jobs). For proof, look at WalMart – they are successful because most consumers are more worried about price than where a particular product is manufactured. [32]
Despite the rise, jobless claims have remained below 400,000, a level historically associated with an improving labor market, in nine of the past ten weeks. [21] More Americans filed initial jobless claims last week than most analysts expected, coming in at the highest level since early November. [20]
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended December 31 rose to 3.628 million, confounding expectations for a decline to 3.550 million. [21] The advance number of jobless claims jumped to 399 thousand for the first week ended January 7, 2012, the largest in six weeks, compared to 375 thousand in the earlier week thus reversing the recent fall in jobless claims. [29]
Conservatives mock this as the following comments from FreeRepublic document:
What?
All the temporary, holiday-season jobs actually came to an end after the holiday-season was over?
Who could POSSIBLY have predicted that?!
And:
Wow! The smartest guy in the world occupying the White House and Geithner never figured on this. Temporaries hired for Christmas seasonal shopping are now being laid off. What a shocker.
I’m waiting to hear the new numbers on the MSM. They sure were quick at 8.5% last week
And:
LMAO, how many times do these fools think we are going to believe that claims and the unemployment rate have gone down? And do they really think we believe that a ton of jobs were created in Dec? Even a halfwit can figure out most of the jobs in Dec are seasonal and come January the job numbers will be “adjusted” “unexpectedly”. Anyone who votes for HUSSEIN this time around, really and truly has to be stupid
And:
but but but – the unemployment rate went down???? We popped the champagne corks just last week!!!!!
Everybody, quick…stop celebrating /s/
And:
Some Pundits were still talking up the fact that it is still under 400,000. Well guess what? Next week, that 399,000 will be revised UPWARD over 400,000.
As you can see by my article here, I was mocking this “unexpected increase of jobless claims” crap a year ago almost to the day.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out – which just makes the mainstream media and their “analysts” all the more blameworthy. There is something called “seasonal holiday hiring” that any fool ought to know all about. And the simple fact of the matter is that while they are fools, they’re not stupid: had this decrease in the unemployment rate occurred during a Reagan or Bush presidency, the media would have jumped all over the “artificial” decrease being due to a surge of temporary workers. But because it happened for their messiah, they uncorked their champagne to celebrate Obama’s magnificent leadership in bringing down the unemployment rate.
The unrelenting bias is as despicable as it is dishonest. The media and the liberals they serve do absolutely everything they can to talk down the economy – and create economic pain – during Republican administrations by covering everything with an unfair negative slant; and then they do everything they can to talk UP the economy during Democrat administrations by covering everything with an equally unfair positive slant.
I have recently documented how bad things really are. The major reason that the unemployment rate has dipped is because discouraged workers and people who finally exhaust their benefits are simply not counted. When you ignore the propaganda math and look at the facts, you find that the labor force – as measured by the labor participation rate – is far smaller than it was when Bush was president. And if you measured the unemployment rate with the same labor participation rate that George Bush had, unemployment would be 11.4 percent.
Newsweek is a hard-core liberal piece of trash, which makes this admission all the more stunning:
Evan Thomas of Newsweek was one of the few journalists who admitted that the mainstream media wanted John Kerry to win. He said media bias was worth as many as 20 million votes for Kerry. But that doesn’t mean that Newsweek is free of liberal bias. We picked up a copy of the January 10 issue and were astounded by the examples of bias contained therein.
We live in an immoral society that is on its way to a hard, hard fall. And the degeneration and wickedness that today characterizes America is largely due to a media-fabricated culture.
Let me quote the same Evan Thomas on Obama:
Evan THOMAS: “…in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He’s-”
Chris MATTHEWS: “Yeah.”
Yeah, indeed, Mr. “I felt this thrill going up my leg.” Yeah, indeed.
I keep preaching it: the beast is coming. And when he comes, he will be a big government leader who will be celebrated and worshiped on an even grander scale than our media celebrated and worshiped Obama. The coming Antichrist will literally be worshiped as “God” (see Revelation 13:8) and the mainstream media will lead the way toward establishing that demonic worship. And Democrats will adoringly vote for him – and bring upon America the full fury of the wrath of God that we are already beginning to see in God damn America.
Tags: jobless claims, media bias, same economic data, unemployment, unexpected, unexpectedly
Start Thinking Right 
January 31, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Do you know who voted for Obama? The people who were working over 40 hours a week, but still couldn’t pay their sick child’s hospital expenses. People who would drive through rich neighborhoods all around their city (Houston, Atlanta) full of Republicans who were rolling in money, and think – “what do these people do for a living, that they can drive Lexus cars and send their kids to private schools and let their wives shop all day instead of working?” They are the people who look at the biggest, most posh buildings downtown and see that they belong to banks, oil, and insurance companies who made money hand over fist during the Bush years, then caused an economic collapse. They were DISGUSTED. Here comes a man promising healthcare coverage for all children, stopping unfair credit card practices by banks, requiring insurance companies to show how much of the premium actually goes to patient care, set up RN visits for low-income first-time mothers, etc. And you know what? He kept all those promises – check Politifact.com. None of the Republican candidates seems any different than the money-grubbing white men who got us into this mess in the first place – and that is why they will lose.
February 1, 2012 at 7:50 pm
Julie,
Well, I’m dumber now after reading your comment.
It’s amazing how on the one hand Republicans are demagogued as being dumber and less educated on the one hand even as they are simultaneously demagogued as being the party of rich people on the other.
Do you know that conservatives are 300% more generous than liberals??? Even though liberals have more money than conservatives:
Why do you vote for the party and ideology of greed? You hate people who are generous with their own money and love those who are only “generous” with OTHER people’s money!!!
It’s interesting that in both the House of Representatives AND the U.S. Senate, Democrats are the actual party of rich greedy bastards.
It’s also interesting to see that the people who are FUNDING Obama are pay-play crony capitalists who get huge sums of taxpayer money in exhange for their contributions like Solyndra and MF Global (and see also here).
Do you know who votes Republicans? People who go to church. Democrats are more likely to believe in Astrology as “scientific,” on the other hand.
Under your messiah, Julie Hannah, the misery index is at a 28-year high. That, by the way, is a measure that includes the fact that Obama has destroyed jobs with the fact that he has made everything we buy more expensive. Was that one of the promises he made??? Under Obama, poverty has skyrocketed. And in particular black poverty has skyrocketed. Was that one of his promises??? Under Obama, gasoline was the most expensive over the course of a year IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Under Obama, the labor participation rate, which is the measure of people of working age who have a job, has plummeted massively as compared to Bush. Two-and-a-half million jobs have simply VANISHED under Obama. Was that one of his promises???
Btw, you want to see what a money-grubbing white man really looks like? It looks like one of Obama’s bestest buddies, that’s what.
If Obama gets re-elected, Julie Hannah, you are going to get the poverty and despair that you deserve.