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Fox News is As the Wall Street Journal has noted , higher prices today reflect stronger demand.

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While America’s recovery from the 2008 recession has hardly been booming — economic growth remains sluggish and unemployment is still a discouragingly high 7.8 percent — it’s actually been better than Europe’s .

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This afternoon on Fox News’ America Live , Megyn Kelly did a segment on criticism of the way venture capital firm Bain Capital, under Mitt Romney’s leadership, handled the takeover of a steel mill that later went bankrupt. Unmentioned any point during the segment, however, was the fact that the U.S. government ultimately had to bailout the company by funding the pension payments that the steel mill had promised its employees. During the segment, Kelly hosted the former CEO of the company Bain created during the takeover of the steel mill. Kelly said that Bain made a “$4 million profit” and “$4.5 million in consulting fees,” and adding that an Obama campaign ad — which PolitiFact rated as “Mostly True” — “paint[s] Bain under Romney” as “just not caring about” the pensions or employment of the steel mill workers. But she did not mention the bailout.  

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A May 18  Wall Street Journal  article  claimed that the “tenor” of a recently proposed super PAC ad campaign to attack President Obama over his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright “was far different than that adopted so far by [Mitt] Romney,” and that Romney’s campaign “has been focused on raising money” and the economy while “rarely straying beyond those topics.” But as Politico pointed out, Romney invoked Wright as recently as February to attack the president. From the Wall Street Journal (note: full article available behind pay wall): Mr. Romney’s comments on the Obama campaign’s attack, three days after the ad was released, underscored his campaign’s approach in recent days: It has been focused on raising money and building Mr. Romney’s image as a businessman concerned about the economy and federal debt, rarely straying beyond those topics–including putting him in front of a monitor at public events showing an updated total of the national debt. The tenor of the proposed ad [linking President Obama to Reverend Wright] was far different than that adopted so far by Mr. Romney and many other GOP-leaning groups, which have chosen not to attack Mr. Obama personally. The episode was a reminder that while independent super PACs have shown their power to assist candidates they favor, they also hold the potential to complicate or contradict a candidate’s own messages.

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During a May 18 appearance on Fox’s America’s Newsroom , conspiracy peddler Katie Pavlich made a number of far out claims concerning how the doctrine of separation of power relates to the ongoing investigation of the ATF’s failed Operation Fast and Furious by congressional Republicans.  As you may recall from high school civics class, separation of powers refers to the system of government we have in the United States where the authority of the federal government is divided among three co-equal branches. This equilibrium between branches of the federal government is maintained through the system of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution. But in Pavlich’s world, the legislative branch reigns supreme and the Department of Justice must supply any and all documents requested by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) during his committee’s investigation. This ridiculous theory would disrupt the system of checks and balances and is refuted by Congress’ own research department and court precedent concerning the right of the Executive to withhold certain types of information.    KATIE PAVLICH, TOWNHALL NEWS EDITOR: Not to mention you have the Justice Department engaging in a full on cover-up, the latest in Eric Holder refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena, which they have the authority to issue and Justice Department has to comply with it under the terms of the Constitution. It’s just another way of proving that they really have a lot to hide here. BILL HEMMER, HOST: You also know there are tens of thousands of documents that have been given internally to an IG — an inspector general — why is that not sufficient? Explain that? PAVLICH: Well the Inspector General actually worked for Eric Holder during his time as a U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C. so there is a conflict of interest there. And everything that the Inspector General is privy to, Congress is also privy too, and the Justice Department investigating itself on this matter, they are willing to go to the lengths of covering it up internally. PAVLICH: Speaker Boehner did push President Obama this week to tell his Attorney General to start complying and getting to the bottom of Fast and Furious. In fact, this investigation has been going on for more than a year now. We deserve answers. And President Obama, as the Commander in Chief, has a responsibility to tell his Attorney General, “Congress has the authority to subpoena you and you have to comply with that.” In the span of a few minutes, Pavlich butchered a number of basic principles concerning how our federal government operates. It was pointless of Pavlich to mention that the Department of Justice’s inspector general used to work for Attorney General Eric Holder in order to suggest bias on his part, because the Department of Justice’s inspector general also works for Holder presently. That is what (non-presidentially appointed) inspectors general do; they serve as politically independent individuals within government agencies for the purpose of conducting internal investigations. Furthermore, the president’s responsibilities as Commander in Chief relate to command of the military, not the president’s ability to oversee federal agencies as Pavlich suggested. But the biggest error made by Pavlich — one that she repeated three times during her appearance — is that the Department of Justice must turn over every single document requested by the House Oversight Committee in order to be in compliance with Issa’s subpoena.

Tags: house, media, military, outlook, president, slate, united-states, war

Latching onto a Congressional Research Service report commissioned by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Fox News suggested today that government investments in clean energy hurt our military. But experts agree that investments in clean energy technology and climate mitigation benefit our national security. The report found that the federal government has spent more than $68 billion since 2008 on climate-related activities. The majority of these funds went to the Climate Change Technology Program , which invests in renewable energy and other energy technologies that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Although only a small fraction of that funding — about 0.01% — went to the Defense Department, Fox anchor Martha MacCallum suggested that climate change programs are being funded at the expense of national security, asking: “Is the White House putting green energy ahead of defense?” And the Wall Street Journal ‘s Stephen Moore added: “I do think this national security issue is really the crux of the issue about whether we want money that should be spent to keep us safe and keep us secure going for green programs.” Let’s put things in perspective. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Pentagon has spent $776 million on climate change programs over the past 4 years. This accounts for approximately 0.0002% of total defense spending over that time frame — hardly excessive to address a problem that military experts agree poses a major national security threat.

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By Amitabh Pal, April 26, 2012 European policymakers need to get rid of their ruinous ideas—now. read more

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CNN contributor Erick Erickson appears giddy at the chance to blame President Obama for Standard & Poor’s  decision  to downgrade the United States’ credit rating. Just  look   at   some  of his tweets:      

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