Jennifer Rubin: The press won't let go of a Republican talking point

[Nevilledog]

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Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin
@JRubinBlogger
Why does the press corps keeps advancing a GOP talking point that has been proven false? The fixation on false balance. For too many reporters that means repeating baseless claims and ignoring the evidence when the claim is discredited.

Opinion | The press won’t let go of a Republican talking point
No, unemployment benefits are not hurting job growth
washingtonpost.com
8:47 AM · Jun 6, 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/06/press-wont-let-go-gop-talking-point/

When April’s tepid jobs numbers came out, Republicans insisted the culprit was overly generous unemployment benefits. People are just lazy! Take away benefits and force people to find work! The administration replied that, for starters, you have to seek and accept offered work to get benefits. Moreover, there was little evidence that unemployment benefits correlated to slow jobs growth. Rather, other factors — in particular, lingering concerns about covid, lack of child care and schools still operating at least in part remotely — were to blame.

Then came the May numbers showing and the unemployment rate dropping to 5.8 percent. Nevertheless, the White House press corps is still parroting the now-moot argument that people would rather stay home than work.

In the White House briefing room on Friday, reporters peppered Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council: Does President Biden still think the “more lackluster numbers," as one questioner put it, are not related to unemployment benefits? Deese must have felt like he was in a time warp.

He politely responded that “we’re seeing really robust job growth. And we’re seeing, in fact, historic job growth in the context of historic economic growth.” He added, “We find ourselves, the American economy now, the economy is growing faster than any other major economy. Jobs are growing faster than any other major economies.”

In other words, jobs are growing strongly now, when those same unemployment benefits are available.

*snip*

[underpants]

1. This shouldn't be news or hard for anyone to figure out

Especially the pro-Iraq war useful tool like the New York Times

[spanone]

2. horse race bullshit.

[malaise]

3. We've been saying this for ages

Why the hell do they keep repeating things that have been proven false by every institution that matters

[Wounded Bear]

4. They seem to be trying to maintain the illusion that shit was going great under Trump...

and all the bad shit is because of Dems.