Salon.com > the daily caller

The Daily Caller shamelessly shills for Big Tobacco

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 18:11:00 +0000

The right-leaning publication The Daily Caller recently launched an outrageous editorial series by author Patrick Howley. "Cigarette Reviews for the Uninitiated: 18 Brands in 18 Weeks" reads like a parody of tobacco industry talking points, or some pundit's idea of an end-of-year joke column. But on close inspection, it appears to be quite real. The expressed purpose of the series is stated clearly: “It is our hope that the research conducted herein by official The D.C. cigarette critic Patrick Howley will inform and educate the public, as well as aid tobacco companies in their forthcoming product designs.”

Labor Department is not hiding behind the hurricane

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:07:00 +0000

It would have been a clever trick by that dastardly Labor Department: use a devastating, coast-altering hurricane to purposefully delay the release of a jobs report so damning it would turn the election for the GOP if released on time this week.

At least this was the insinuation of Fox Nation when they called a possible delay in the October jobs report release "outrageous." Drudge too suggested the delay would be a "mystery," despite the fact that Frankenstorm unmysteriously shuttered D.C. federal offices (where jobs reports are created) for the first part of this week. The Daily Caller noted that "any delay would postpone the release until Monday, likely muting the impact of bad numbers."

Right-wing pundits might put this particular conspiracy theory to bed if today's October jobs report from payroll processor ADP is an indicator of the government's figures. If we go by ADP's numbers, we can expect a jobs report not too damning at all. "Private employers added 158,000 jobs in the month, ADP said, beating economists' forecasts of 143,000," CNN reported Thursday, noting, "Meanwhile, the number of people filing for initial jobless claims fell 9,000 to 363,000 in the latest week, the U.S. government said."

Moderator’s 1991 wedding guest list turns into VP debate side issue

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 12:35:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) -- The day before the vice presidential debate the guest list for moderator Martha Raddatz's 1991 wedding has become an issue, of sorts.

The list included Harvard Law School student and future president Barack Obama. The groom was Julius Genachowski, the current Federal Communications Commission chairman. And The Daily Caller website wanted to know if the connections 21 years ago raise the question of bias going into Thursday's debate.

Raddatz's employer, ABC News, called the issue "silly" and sought to beat the website to the punch by confirming that Obama attended the wedding 21 years ago. The couple divorced in 1997.

Raddatz, ABC's senior foreign affairs correspondent, was chosen this summer by the Commission on Presidential Debates to moderate the debate between Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. She has been with ABC News for more than 13 years and wrote "The Long Road Home - A Story of War and Family."

In the early 1990s, Raddatz was a reporter for ABC's local station in Boston. Law school student Genachowski worked at the Harvard Law Review, where Obama was president, and the couple invited much of the review's staff to their wedding, ABC said. The guest list also included Bradford Berenson, a future counsel in George W. Bush's administration.