Bringing The Pain, Part 4

(Part 1 including the setup is here, Part 2 is here, and Part 3 is here.)

Maine

I have a question for the registered voters of this wondrous state: what the hell were you thinking exactly when you elected Paul LePage as governor?

As noted here, he signed a bill easing restrictions on child labor, and as noted here (pretty much doing the bidding of those who financed him, of course), he favored repealing the state’s ban on the use of strikebreakers and eliminating unemployment benefits for strikers, and he also rolled back the state’s wage and tip sharing laws to comply with weaker federal standards.

Oh, and who can forget this typical episode from LePage, where he ordered the removal of a 36-foot mural depicting the state’s labor history from the Department of Labor building (to show how petty LePage truly is, he also favored changing the name of one of the conference rooms from the “Perkins Room,” named to commemorate Frances Perkins, the crusading Secretary of Labor under FDR, to something more “business friendly”).

There are actually sane Republicans still representing this state, though; as noted here, President Snowe met some honest-to-God unemployed people at a job fair, and she and Susan Collins supported extending jobless benefits here (earning them the eternal enmity of this crowd).

Update 1 10/6/11: Given this item, all I can say is that, somewhere, “Chicken Lady” Sue Lowden is smiling, unfortunately (here).

Update 2 10/6/11: God, is LePage a buffoon (here).


Update 5/9/12: Same as it ever was - unbelievable (here).


Maryland

This tells us that the state’s unemployment rate was 7.2 percent in July (with a breakdown of June rates by county here – as noted here, Maryland ranks last in the nation in job growth, though affluent pockets of the state seem to be doing OK).

And as noted here (concerning the March employment numbers)…

“Maryland’s economy continues to grow as our state pulls out of this national recession. Thousands of Marylanders have entered the workforce since the start of the year and we recorded the largest monthly employment gain last month since the final month of President Clinton’s term,” (Maryland Governor Martin) O’Malley said then.

As the story tells us, though, O’Malley was a bit more guarded about the May numbers, for what it’s worth.

Also, this tells you of an individual who had an adventure with filing for unemployment in the state (apparently rescued because he knew someone in the state’s unemployment office). In addition, this tells us the following…

Congressman Elijah Cummings hosted a town hall meeting this weekend at Howard Community College to reach out to those who need help but may not know where to find it.

“It would be so sad for people to sit, thinking that there was nothing they can do, people losing hope. And at the same time, there are programs that exist to help them,” Cummings said.

I respected Elijah Cummings anyway, but I especially do now after that story.

Massachusetts

This tells us of newspaper columnist Jim Kinney, who sought stories of unemployed people in the state in April; I hope individuals were able to communicate with him, or you can reach him now from an Email link accompanying the story.

Also, this provides a discussion thread on the topic of people supposedly choosing unemployment over work (though someone is going to have to prove to me that this is a legitimate issue in light of this). This state (like many others, I’m sure) appears to suffer from a degree of economic anxiety that seems to persist despite a growing economy, as noted here from May.

And when it comes to the politicians, this tells us that “Wall Street Scott” Brown single-handedly blocked an unemployment benefits extension last December, and this tells us of the highly questionable job record of a certain Republican presidential candidate who was once governor of this state (typical for a guy who gave us this “duuh!” moment also).

Michigan

This might be the biggest “job graveyard” of anywhere in this country. However, as noted here, though unemployment once reached the staggering level of 14.1 percent in 2009, it has been coming down since then, though it rose again to 10.9 percent in July (here).

Former Dem Governor Jennifer Granholm said here in June 2010 that the failure of the Senate to extend unemployment benefits and state Medicaid aid was “devastating.” Of course, the wingnuts had a field day with Granholm, trying to propagate the lie that a tax hike led to a spike in Michigan unemployment here, to say nothing of some truly evergreen garbage from the right-wing media circus like this.

So who is in charge of Michigan now with Granholm’s departure? Why, Rick Snyder, head of former lousy computer maker Gateway, who catastrophically slashed unemployment benefits here to a maximum of 20 weeks. And as noted here, Snyder implemented his “emergency manager” law, which of course is meant to (wait for it!) attack public sector unions and arbitrarily remove elected officials from office (Democratic officials primarily, of course).

Want to do something about it? Click here to learn more about the recall effort against Snyder (we’re at least halfway there on the signatures required for recall – let’s keep the momentum going).

Minnesota

The state recently experienced a government shutdown when the Republican legislature wouldn’t agree on a two-year budget plan with Dem governor Mark Dayton (here).

As a result (as noted here)…

The net loss of jobs in July was 19,800 (8,200 private sector jobs were added). Even with the shutdown, the state's unemployment rate remained substantially below the national rate of 9.1 percent.

Most of the 22,000 state workers and 3,000 government contractors who were laid off during the 20-day shutdown have been called back to work. For public sector employment, the good news ends there.

Also, as noted here, the state’s economy lost out on potentially $62 billion. One piece of good news, though, is that the state’s rate of 7.2 percent is still well below the national average.

And when it comes to the politicians, this reminds us that Moon Unit Bachmann said that she hoped higher unemployment would help her campaign (nice). On the sane side, this tells us that Sen. Al Franken issued a statement of support on positive developments in the American Crystal Sugar lockout, which potentially affects 1,300 workers.

Mississippi

This tells us how the state is “shedding jobs,” though hope is out there, somewhere (kind of a reach with a state that ranks last in so many categories, including child poverty, infant mortality, lowest median household income, highest teen birth rate, and highest rate of both obesity and STDs, as noted here…a bit tangential for the jobs issue, I know, but it’s hard to develop an economy with numbers like these).

So what does governor Haley Barbour say about this? Well, he said here that some Medicaid recipients in his state drove BMWs (offering no proof, of course). And as noted here, the state’s two Repug senators, Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker, received an "F" for their antipoverty voting records in 2009 from the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, voting against extending unemployment benefits, the Paycheck Fairness Act, an amendment to extend the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) jobs program, and ten other poverty-fighting bills that could have provided financial relief to their low-income constituents.

Oh, and by the way (as noted here), the state’s unemployment rate in July was 10.4 percent (Barbour, Wicker and Cochran should each be summarily fired, to say nothing of that state’s U.S. House reps…I can dream, can’t I?).

I’ll pick this up later, hopefully this week (I was planning to wrap this up by Labor Day, but I can tell you right now that that ain’t gonna happen).

Sunday Stuff

Here's a Sunday history lesson about "our plain duty" on Social Security (and kudos to Bernie Sanders for this, by the way - and a raspberry to "Goodhair" Perry for this)...



...and I hope everyone made it through the bad weather OK - from these parts, it's finally time to play this song (we may actually see the sun in an hour or so, believe it or not).

Friday Stuff

Hopefully back to posting soon, or Monday at the latest - we'll see...

Meanwhile, with an impending weather calamity facing this country, always count on Eric Cantor to be as big of a sleazy weasel as you can imagine (here)...



...and this song has nothing whatsoever to do with hurricanes, wind or rain, so here it is.

Thursday Stuff

Happy 90th birthday, believe it or not, to boomer icon Monty Hall (I can give you the birthday cake, or you can have what's behind Door Number 2 where Carol is standing...sssh, don't tell him it's 50 cases of Shinola...and "Irene," huh? And I'll bet those two Pontiacs would go for about four times that amount now, fully restored)...



...and from a huckster for fun, I now give you a huckster for real (if you like George W. Bush, you'll love Rick Perry)...



Update 9/3/11: Perry is worse than a joke - he's an obscenity (here).

..."Worst Persons" (Indiana State Rep Phillip Hinkle gets it for the reasons noted here - and as long as we're quoting Yes lyrics - well, I was going to say that "yours is no disgrace," but that would be a lie of course; Florida Congressman Steve Southerland continues to struggle under the apparently oppressive yolk of a low-six-figure salary and free health benefits and myriad other perks...God, are the Florida voters who elected these clowns the stupidest life forms in the universe, or what; but L.A. Dodgers owner Frank McCourt takes it for subjecting Vin Scully, of all people, to a fan poll that apparently will dictate whether or not Scully still has a job...the Phillies are my team, but as someone who respects a pro even if they're on the other side of the diamond, I think there's no way a legend like Scully should have to put up with this...got chopped off a bit at the end, but you get the idea)...



...and no, this isn't a weather forecast, though I suppose it could be.

Thursday Mashup (8/25/11)

I give you the following from clownhall.com…

PaulAzinger:POTUS has played more golf this month than I have. I have created more jobs this month than he has.

(By the way, this is one of the reasons why I hate Twitter, even though I know it’s the wave of the future, as they say. There are some concepts/ideas/themes/whatever that have no business being boiled down to 25 words or less, or whatever the maximum is. If people don’t have the time or the mental capacity to absorb more information…well, they just have to generate more time or more brainpower, that’s all.)

Update 8/28/11: OK, maybe "hate" is too strong - I see that Twitter has value as a "rapid fire" mode of communication, but I'm just saying that it shouldn't be used as a tool for critical analysis of substantive content, that's all, though often it is.

This “tweet” is from golfer Paul Azinger, who seems to have done well turning himself into a cottage industry after winning eleven tournaments in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s; in addition, he organized the U.S. Ryder Cup-winning golf team in 2008 (as noted here, though, the celebration was not without some rather pointless jingoism). He has also survived a bout of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and he has written two books about his career and his illness.

However, based on this, it seems that he’s “tweeting” to find out how successful he would be were he to run for public office.

Sooo…exactly how many jobs have you supposedly created this month, Azinger (and by the way, if you’re going to criticize Obama on that, it’s really weak to give the wretched 112th Congress a pass on this since the president, for the most part, doesn’t make law himself). And only a duffer would criticize a commander-in-chief for actually playing golf on his vacation.

Unlike this guy, of course (Number 43, I mean)…



Note to Azinger; it's nice that you've achieved some degree of success organizing a bunch of golfers, but if you have a plan, get in the public arena for real and tell us what it is, as opposed to taking shots at somebody else. Otherwise, you’re not “shooting for par” (sorry for the golf colloquialisms, but they’re too tempting…family members play it, but I’ve never been any good at the game myself).

Next, I give you J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times, lamenting the recent passing of Joey Vento, proprietor of Geno’s Steaks in South Philadelphia (here)…

Joey Vento’s demand that his customers speak English was not about hate, as his critics said. It was a stand for common sense, a defense of the most precious bond that Americans share, a common language, English.

I think Vento’s “English only” policy was stupid; I mean, if he had such a problem trying to understand what his customers were saying, why didn’t his menu have letters or numbers associated with the selections? It’s a lot easier to understand “1, 2 or 3” or “A,B or C” instead of “cheese steak with or without onions, mushrooms or pepperoni,” or something. However, I understand how someone can make a case that he should have been allowed to put up his sign, stupid as it was.

But like Azinger, I think Vento let a little bit of celebrity go to his head; as noted here, he asked how you could give health care to 30 million people and save money over 10 years. “I’ve got a bridge to sell you if you believe that,” Vento said.

In response, I give you this (and as I pointed out at the time, we can be grateful that no one elected Joey Vento to a damn thing).

Continuing, George Will sneers as follows from his ivory WaPo tower here…

The residues of liberalism’s Wisconsin Woodstock — 1960s radicalism redux: operatic lamentations, theatrical demonstrations and electoral futilities — are words of plaintive defiance painted on sidewalks around the state capitol. “Solidarity forever” was perhaps painted by a graduate student forever at the University of Wisconsin. “Repubs steal elections” is an odd accusation from people who, seeking to overturn the 2010 elections, cheeredDemocratic lawmakers who fled to Illinois — a congenial refuge for labor-subservient Democrats — in order to paralyze the duly elected legislature. The authors of the sidewalk graffiti have at least read Jefferson: “The tree of liberty is watered by the blood of tyrants.” The tyrant is “$cott Walker American Fa$ci$t.”

Our well-kept right wing pundit would do well by his readers (assuming they weren’t as close-minded as he is) to read this, including a map of all of the states where labor is fighting back as a result of the power grab by the Kochs and Hosni Mubarak Walker in the “cheese head” state (with the Wisconsin tactics played out across the country).

And as noted here…

To recap: Democrats, using only volunteer help, forced recall elections in 75% of the Republican-held Senate districts eligible for recall. Republicans, on the other hand, forced recall elections in only 37.5% of the eligible Democratic districts, even with paid help and questionable tactics, including using forged signatures and offering free drinks to people in exchange for signing the recall petitions.

Early on, many observers and professional pundits argued that the recalls would be not only a referendum on Scott Walker and his supporters in the legislature, but also a measure of how Wisconsinites felt about the 14 Democratic senators leaving the state to block the bill. Reading the elections in those terms, the Republicans and Scott Walker lost big. They lost in one third of the six recall districts represented by Republicans, and gained no seats in the districts held by Democrats. As State Senator Lena Taylor of Milwaukee phrased it during a Madison, Wisconsin broadcast on MSNBC last week, she and her fellow Democrats “went into their backyard, into their sandbox, took their toys and made them ours.”

What about the Wisconsin 14 who left the state to slow down Governor Scott Walker and his allies in the legislature? Only three of them faced recalls, and they all performed strongly, one even better than he did in 2008.

Also, this tells us that the Dems have their work cut out for them in an effort to recall Walker, though a lot of that depends on the right candidate; it’s basically a tossup at this point, but definitely not a majority of support for Walker by any means…we’ll see.

Finally, the following column recently appeared in the Doylestown Intelligencer by Neil Samuels, vice chairman of the Bucks County Democrats…

Bucks County Republican Party Vice Chairwoman Pat Poprik recently made an outrageous and demonstrably false comment to your newspaper concerning the arrest of four Republican county employees, including the elected register of wills, Barbara Reilly.

Poprik claimed that Democratic County Commissioner Diane Marseglia is as responsible as Republican County Commissioner Charley Martin for not uncovering the alleged felonies and crimes that occurred in the courthouse (which included theft, conspiracy, tampering with evidence and official oppression).

Poprik’s exact quote was: “Diane was a commissioner at the time this took place. If Charley should have known, then she should have known.” Really? Did Poprik not read the grand jury report that led to the arrests? I find that hard to imagine, since the Republican Party headquarters where she spends so much time is frequently mentioned in the grand jury’s final report.

The grand jury cites numerous witnesses swearing under oath that employees from the county Register of Wills Office were paid with tax dollars for working on Republican political campaigns during work hours in the county courthouse and got paid off the books for working at the polls on election days. And 10 separate witnesses specifically admitted under oath that they and other employees also frequently left work and crossed the street to Republican Party headquarters to stuff envelopes, make phone calls or do other campaign chores.

Some readers might legitimately wonder whether any of these department employees ever worked on Democratic campaigns or at Democratic headquarters, and the answer is a resounding “no” for a very simple reason. As the testimony of the now-arrested administrator Candace Quinn is summarized in the report: “Quinn added that Reilly is also a Republican, as is every employee at the Register of Wills. Quinn admitted that in her 18 years in the office, there has never been a Democrat working there.”

Typical Repug garbage; in response, to help Dem Bucks County Commissioner candidates Diane Marseglia and Det Ansinn, click here.

Wednesday Stuff

I was driving back from Maryland yesterday on 95 when we had the earthquake - felt to me like tractor trailers passing by anyway, so I didn't notice much of anything (though Le Manse Doomsy was briefly disturbed for a time, as reported by my "better half"...all is well, though, and hopefully that goes for everybody else).

So, cue the obligatory video...



...and RIP Jerry Leiber (pics are from the film "American Graffiti," including a few actors we know well by now who were very, very young at the time - video goes for about 30 seconds too long, but it's still good)...



...oh, and as a reminder, here is the very definition of a "fighting Dem" (and in a related story, I was sorry to hear about this)...



...and were FDR alive today, I'm convinced that he would take dead aim at the Koch Brothers, for reasons such as those described here (this is a case study in using right-wing code language for "dog whistle" purposes, and also for fighting back).

Wednesday Mashup (8/24/11)

Oh noes! Looks like the Obama Administration is in trouble on the jobs issue (here)…

House Republican leaders used the new economic forecast from the Congressional Budget Office to criticize their Democratic counterparts for slowing the creation of jobs.

“The bottom line in this underwhelming report [is that] … President Obama’s policies are continuing to make it harder for the private sector to create jobs, and that’s continuing to make it harder to balance the federal budget,” Speaker of the House John Boehner wrote in a statement.

And check out this hilarious bit of editorializing in what purports to be a “news” story from The Daily Tucker…

The Republicans’ focus on jobs, rather than deficits, reflects recent polling that shows swing-voters are more concerned about high unemployment than high deficits.

Really? Anybody see a jobs bill from this bunch? Anybody?

And it sounds like Orange Man and his pals actually like the CBO now, doesn’t it?

Wonder why they didn’t here last January, when the CBO said that trying to repeal the health care law would add $230 billion to the deficit?

What a bunch of frauds (and here is an important reminder from Dem U.S. House Rep Joe Crowley).

Update 9/1/11: Oops, looks like the Repugs don't like the CBO again (here).

Next, someone named Maggie Gallagher at Irrational Spew Online here wonders if the gay marriage issue will spell defeat for Dem Dave Weprin, who is running against Repug Bob Turner for the New York seat that used to be held by Dem Anthony Weiner.

Well, seeing that gay marriage enjoys enough support to allow that state to become the sixth in the country to legalize gay marriage (here), I would be inclined to think that Gallagher and her pals will have to look somewhere else for a “wedge” issue (at the moment, Weprin appears to lead Turner by six points, as noted here).

As for the Repug candidate, Turner attacked Weprin for supporting the “ground zero mosque” here and also claimed that the Zadroga Bill shouldn’t cover volunteers who aided with 9/11 rescue and recovery here. So yeah, it looks like Turner is a good little Repug who would be a dutiful servant to the House Repug “leadership” (and more on Weprin is here).

Also, Joe Nocera opined as follows in the New York Times yesterday (here)…

Boeing’s aircraft assembly has long been done by its unionized labor force in Puget Sound, Wash. Most of the new (787) Dreamliners will be built in Puget Sound as well. But with the plane so far behind schedule, Boeing decided to spend $750 million to open the South Carolina facility. Between the two plants, the company hopes to build 10 Dreamliners a month.

That’s the plan, at least. The Obama administration, however, has a different plan. In April, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Boeing, accusing it of opening the South Carolina plant to retaliate against the union, which has a history of striking at contract time. The N.L.R.B.’s proposed solution, believe it or not, is to move all the Dreamliner production back to Puget Sound, leaving those 5,000 workers in South Carolina twiddling their thumbs.

Seriously, when has a government agency ever tried to dictate where a company makes its products? I can’t ever remember it happening. Neither can Boeing, which is fighting the complaint. J. Michael Luttig, Boeing’s general counsel, has described the action as “unprecedented.” He has also said that it was a disservice to a country that is “in desperate need of economic growth and the concomitant job creation.” He’s right.

I don’t know of a “government agency” dictating where a company makes its products either. However, I would suggest that providing tax incentives to companies to offshore our jobs, to say nothing of signing crappy trade deals into law, helps to “dictate where a company makes its products” also, and I don’t hear anything near the squawking on that that we should be hearing as far as I’m concerned.

Also, it should be noted that, in the 2008 Boeing strike, workers ended up losing $7 grand in salary, which demonstrates yet again that labor strikes rarely have clear winners and losers (here). And in ’09, Boeing said here they had to open the S.C. plant because they couldn’t get a no-strike deal with the machinists, but now, they say they would have opened the S.C. plant “regardless of the labor issue,” which sounds like a flip-flop to me (and as noted here, Boeing originally committed to a second plant in Puget Sound in ‘07, but switched to South Carolina in ’09…so, as far as I’m concerned, they went back on their word concerning their original deal).

In addition (here)…

Boeing executives, including (Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and Chief Executive Jim Albaugh), have been saying good things about the importance of engineering in recent months and have shown “some signs” of following through on that talk, (Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace union spokesman Bill Dugovich) said.

“We’re looking forward to seeing more of that,” he said. “It’s good to hear the president of BCA say they’ve outsourced too much and they won’t outsource key technologies in the future again. Certainly the wing technology is one technology we pointed out repeatedly that that’s just a critical skill and institutional knowledge that should stay within the Boeing Company.”

As for production certainty and cost control, Dugovich said: “We recognize that those are important concerns for Boeing, and they’re concerns for us, too.”

In a letter to union machinists, International Association of Machinists District 751 President Tom Wroblewski agreed with Albaugh’s statements about the Puget Sound aerospace workers, outsourcing, Washington’s business climate and the desirability of putting future commercial airplane programs in the area.

“As far as his comments about strikes and wages go, well, I found it interesting that he’d say something like that just days after he and CEO Jim McNerney both collected $3 million bonuses,” Wroblewski wrote.

I’m willing to entertain a discussion on the merits of the Obama Administration’s efforts to tell Boeing to keep its aerospace jobs in Puget Sound. However, there are plenty of other examples of companies leaving their workforces high and dry for purposes of both on and offshoring, so when one comes along where unionized workers are being protected and they’re getting the work done…well, just don’t expect me to be terribly sympathetic to the company line, that’s all.

(More from Media Matters – turns out that Nocera’s column is more appalling than I imagined…he pledged to write another column about Republicans and non-job creation later, so it sounds like we have more false equivalency on display here.)

Finally, I give you the following from a speech Florida Senate Repug Marco Rubio gave invoking The Sainted Ronnie R (here)…

The answer to what the proper role of government is really lies in what kind of country we want to have. And I think the vast majority of Americans share a common vision for what they want our nation to be. They want our nation to be two things at the same time.

Number one: they want it to be free and prosperous, a place where your economic hopes and dreams can be accomplished and brought up to fruition. That through hard work and sacrifice you can be who God meant you to be. No matter who your parents were, no matter where you were born, no matter how much misfortune you may have met in your life, if you have a good idea, you can be anything if you work hard and play by the rules. Most, if not all, Americans share that vision of a free and prosperous America.

But they also want us to be a compassionate America, a place where people are not left behind. We are a nation that is not going to tolerate those who cannot take care of themselves being left to fend for themselves. We’re not going to tolerate our children being punished for the errors of their parents and society.

So, we are a nation that aspires to two things – prosperity and compassion. And Ronald Reagan understood that.

In response, I give you the following…

Rubio called for raising the age of eligibility to receive Social Security benefits here – so much for compassion.

He opposed adding immigrants to the census here.

Of course, Rubio favors tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations (here).

And that including making the Dubya tax cuts permanent (here).

Also, did I mention Rubio’s education plan cuts tax credits for low-income families to help rich pay for private schools (here)?

And as long as I’m on the subjects of The Gipper and “compassion,” I’d also like to offer the following quote (from here)…

“Is it news that some fellow out in South Succotash somewhere has just been laid off?” (3/16/82)

That Ronnie sure could turn a phrase, couldn’t he?

Monday Stuff

Gee, President Obama takes out both bin Laden and Quadafi - no wonder the wingnuts are beside themselves (And what calm, rational folks the Quadafi regime are, aren't they, as seen below? And no, I don't have a clue as to whether or not that's the correct spelling of his name...I don't know what it is anyway - I want to get to at least one more video on this, but probably not tonight; also, probably no posting tomorrow)...



...and considering the above, doesn't this look like a genius move from Former President Nutball in September 2004 (but ssshh, nary a word of reproach from our corporate media - audio at about :37)...



..."Worst Persons" (yep, I would say that Lamar Smith is a subject matter expert on embarrassing behavior, more proof that "values" charlatan Tony Perkins is a fraud, and sleazy weasel Eric Cantor penned some true dreck today in the WaPo, which I'm sure warmed the cockles of Fred Hiatt and his coal-black heart)...



...and RIP Nick Ashford - along with Valerie Simpson, this is one of their signature tunes…my condolences.

Monday Mashup (8/22/11)

Remember here, when the teabaggers got all upset at Marvel because, in a Captain America comic, they were depicted as holding completely authentic signs, and in the face of criticism, editor Joe Quesada utterly caved and apologized?

Well, in a related story, as they say, I give you this (the correct way to handle such a dustup)…

This year, Marvel Comics announced that multi-racial Miles Morales would be the new man behind Spider-man’s red and blue mask in “Ultimate Spider-Man.” Right on cue, right-wing punditry erupted in a racist rage against the idea of a biracial hero. Defunct Fox News host Glenn Beck lashed out at Marvel, calling Spiderman “a stupid comic book” and attributed the change as an intentional nod to Michelle Obama’s apparent agenda to “change our traditions.” In response, “Ultimate Spider-Man” writer Brian Michael Bendis found reason to celebrate: “We pissed off Glenn Beck, and that was amazing. I don’t think Glenn Beck is an idiot because he’s a conservative. I literally think he’s just an idiot. Regardless of his belief system, he’s just a lunatic. So that was hilarious…I told my wife that she doesn’t have to get me anything for my birthday because nothing will make me happier than this made me.”

Wallopin’ Websnappers!

Also, Tyler Cowen opined as follows at The Old Gray Lady yesterday (here)…

THERE’S been a lot of bad economic news lately, yet we may be overlooking the most disturbing development of all: our economic productivity has been weakening. This isn’t just a problem for the United States. Because America remains a leader in technology and innovation, it is also a matter of concern for the entire world.

Cowen actually cites some legitimate sources for his claim; our ridiculous health care expenditures in this country which basically don’t equate to better patient outcomes, our “expenditures on the military and domestic security” which “generally doesn’t produce useful goods and services that raise our standard of living,” the fact that the Chinese aren’t “taking the lead in creating breakthrough products,” etc. Oh, and Cowen also says, “One problem may be offshoring by American companies” though “(his) point is not to attack offshoring” (of course).

But out of all of this, Cowen arrives at the following conclusion…

“…Americans have not been getting the job done…”

I don’t know what “Americans” Cowen is referring to here, but this tells us the following…

WASHINGTON — The United States is out of step with the rest of the world's richest industrialized nations: Its economy is growing faster than theirs but creating far fewer jobs.

The reason is U.S. workers have become so productive that it's harder for anyone without a job to get one.

Companies are producing and profiting more than when the recession began, despite fewer workers. They're hiring again, but not fast enough to replace most of the 7.5 million jobs lost since the recession began.

Measured in growth, the American economy has outperformed those of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – every Group of 7 developed nation except Canada, according to The Associated Press' new Global Economy Tracker, a quarterly analysis of 22 countries representing more than 80 percent of global output.

Yet the U.S. job market remains the group's weakest. U.S. employment bottomed and started growing again a year ago, but there are still 5.4 percent fewer American jobs than in December 2007. That's a much sharper drop than in any other G-7 country. The U.S. had the G-7's highest unemployment rate as of December.

Also, this tells us how Americans are working part-time jobs to supplement their income.

This is pretty much what you’d expect from a “glibertarian” like Cowen, though, who blamed “immigrants who consume public services” for the deficit here and extolled our supposedly glorious private sector health care system in this country (as opposed to that baaad “big gumint” supposed Obama scheme of health care reform) here...so I guess what he says here about HCR basically constitutes a "flip flop," doesn't it?

Continuing, I give you the following inanity from The Daily Tucker (here)…

Barack Obama’s presidency is a disaster. But however low the Dow drops, however high unemployment goes, however many more times we engage in dubious foreign policy adventures like the Libyan war, one thing is for sure: Conservatives will never call for the assassination of the president.

Oh, that’s rich (would that it were true).

This tells us the following…

Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service.

(Note: This must be a right-wing site…a tipoff is all of the typos. However, the source information looks credible.)

Also, as noted here…

Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.

Also, wingnut Repug U.S. House Rep Paul Broun of Georgia was just a little bit late in responding to the supposed “joke” from a constituent about assassinating Obama (here), and this idiot Rex Rammell in Idaho made a supposed joke about “hunting” Obama here (and by the way, we’re still waiting for an apology for this).

Make no mistake – I agreed with practically nothing that Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History said or did during his ill-fated term, but despite that, I never wished for violence against him physically or against any other public figure. There are plenty of ways to express disagreement without acting in that uncalled-for fashion, and we should all hope and pray for the safety not just of President Obama, but of all of our public officials.

Also, I know it’s hard to believe, but it looks as though the Republican Party has finally found a tax cut it doesn’t like (here)…

Republicans are balking at President Obama's proposal to extend the payroll tax deduction for another year:

"It's always a net positive to let taxpayers keep more of what they earn," says Rep. Jeb Hensarling, "but not all tax relief is created equal for the purposes of helping to get the economy moving again."

And why aren't they eager to extend it?

The 12-month tax reduction will cost the government about $120 billion this year, and a similar amount next year if it's renewed.

That worries Rep. David Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, and a member of the House-Senate supercommittee tasked with finding new deficit cuts. Tax reductions, "no matter how well-intended," will push the deficit higher, making the panel's task that much harder, Camp's office said.

…

Here's why Republicans don't want to do it: it's a twofer. They get to screw the President and they get to screw the middle-class, all at the same time. It's what they refer to as a "golden opportunity" and they don't want to pass it up.

This is typical for the bunch who removed a middle-class tax credit in January here (without a lot of fight from the Dems as nearly as I can tell). And from the “looking into the crystal ball” dept., I give you the following from Dem U.S. House Rep Pete Stark last December…

If Republicans want tax cuts for the wealthy, we should demand that they explain how to pay for them right now. We know how they will be paid for in the long run -- once Republicans are in the majority and flip-flop back to caring about the deficit, they will insist on "deficit reduction" legislation that slashes important programs that help working families -- all to pay down the deficit that this proposal creates.

In addition, this confirms the fact that the Dubya tax cuts were a complete failure; we experienced the lowest increase of GDP under Dubya than under any other president since JFK. And this tells us that they’re not deviating from the script in any way whatsoever (memo to President Hopey Changey: beat them over the head with this, metaphorically speaking, from now until Election Day...and here is more proof).

Finally (and speaking of Republican congressional numbskulls), I give you the following from the web site of Mikey The Beloved (here)…

“The vast majority of jobs created in our economy today are by small and independently owned businesses,” said Fitzpatrick at the town hall. “So if the federal government is serious about finally reducing unemployment, it needs to listen to the people that are in this room today. The ideas I heard today, including reforming the federal tax code, reducing excessive and redundant regulatory burdens, enacting real cost containment for healthcare, and preventing excessive litigation, are important steps I will advocate for in Washington to help jump start our economy.”

Fitzpatrick is already a co-sponsor of the REINS Act, which would require that Congress approve federal regulatory action that is expected to have an economic impact of at least $100 million.

“Already”? He’s been in office for eight months. What, does he expect fanfare or something?

As noted here, however…

(The REINS Act) would stop any major regulation issued by any federal agency from taking effect until it receives approval from both houses of Congress and the president. Boehner justifies the bill as a “transparency” and “accountability” measure, but it clearly takes aim at the White House, which, with the GOP now in control of the House, is relying heavily on agency rulemaking to advance its agenda in areas such as health care, financial regulation, and clean energy.

Yep, with the gridlock created by the wretched 112th Congress, particularly in the House, Orange Man and his pals are trying to hamstring the only means the Obama White House has of carrying out its agenda.

Of course, a Dem’s notion of implementing change in the face of congressional obstruction is a Repug’s notion of “excessive and redundant regulatory burden,” isn’t it?

Where are the jobs, Mikey??!!

Sunday Stuff

The first 3:30 or so of this clip is good, but Bernie Sanders really nails it in the last 30 seconds here (yes, it's a broken record, and I'll keep repeating it as long as I have to)...



Update 8/22/11: Good job by Sanders here also...

...and I meant to include this on Friday, but I changed my mind at the time, so here it is now.

Friday Stuff

Happy 65th Birthday, President Clinton (what follows are remarks on behalf of the China Global Philanthropy Forum).

This was the last president under which this country thrived, experiencing genuine prosperity (Can't remember what it was like? I don't blame you; I barely can myself anymore - just Google it)...



...and it looks like Jon Stewart knocked 'em out again before going on vacation (speaking of missed economic opportunities - here is Part One)...

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...and here is Part Two (wrapup here)...

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...and I suppose thinking about Bill Clinton and the whole "economic prosperity lifting all boats" thing has put me in a '90s mood, and this was a bit of an anthem for yours truly back then (though the "means nothing at all to me today" line was debatable - apologies for showing a clip with that idiot Dennis Miller, but it's a good performance).

Bringing The Pain, Part 3

(Part 1 including the setup is here and Part 2 is here.)

Idaho

As noted here, the jobless rate remained at 9.4 percent in June. However, as noted here from May…

George Stewart hears how North Idaho’s jobless rate is slowly improving, but he’d prefer to experience it.

The Rathdrum man walked away from job searching for a construction position at the Idaho Department of Labor on Friday feeling shut out.

“There’s still not a lot out there,” Stewart said. “If this economy is turning, I’m sorry, but I’m just not feeling it yet.”

Kootenai County’s jobless rate was 11.1 percent in April, down from 11.2 percent in March, according to a report released on Friday by the Idaho Department of Labor.
“The number of people in the labor force decreased as well as the number of unemployed, driving down the unemployment rate itself,” said Alivia Body, regional labor economist.

Body said local initial unemployment claims decreased by 100 in April.

The trends in job openings have steadily been in health care and administrative services,” she said. “However, seasonal employment has trickled in and, as the weather starts to turn, we will start seeing those seasonal jobs ramp up.”

Hopefully when the third-quarter numbers come out, that prediction will be realized.

Also, this tells us that state Repugs tried to block an unemployment extension in March (figures), and this tells us how Idaho “shortchanges the unemployed” with fees on debit cards that are apparently used to collect benefits. Further, the Idaho Department of Labor sponsored a class in June here to help people whose federal unemployment benefits have expired.

Illinois

This takes us to “voices of the long-term unemployed” from Progress Illinois (and this tells us the following)…

Unemployment in Evanston and across Illinois soared in June, as more people, including many new college graduates, entered the labor force.

For Evanston the rate rose from 7.3 percent in May to 8.2 percent in June. That was even higher than the 8.1 percent level in June a year ago.

The statewide rate rose from 9 percent to 9.7 percent -- still below the 10.5 percent of last June.

As noted here, though, Dem Senator Dick Durbin and Repug Senator Mark Kirk have lobbied for the rail funds that Lex Luthor Scott pissed away in Florida in an effort to create jobs in the home state of our current president. And if Illinois can put the dough to work, it will lessen the burden on the federal government; it is one of the biggest borrowers from Washington to pay unemployment benefits (not surprising I guess given the total population, particularly around the Chicago area – here).

And from here…

Chicago Jobs with Justice is not the only organization to respond to the jobs crisis by organizing those directly affected by it. Unemployed people are building similar movements in Pennsylvania, Virginia, California, Rhode Island and other states, according to Hurley and Bill Fletcher Jr., a longtime labor activist and co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice. And UCubed, a project launched by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in early 2010, also aims to organize the jobless to create a “union of the unemployed” and demand a real economic recovery—exclusively through the Internet.

It’s gonna take “people power” to fix this in the end, as long as the Democrats in Washington keep trying to play nice with a political party that has utterly lost its mind.

Indiana

As noted here from April…

Indiana’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped 0.3 percent in March to 8.5 percent, below both the national average and all neighboring states for the second month in a row, according to figures released Tuesday by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. In March 2010, Indiana’s unemployment rate was 10.6 percent.

Monroe County, whose nonseasonally adjusted rate for March dropped to 6.2 percent, has the fifth lowest unemployment rate among Indiana’s 92 counties.

Area counties also saw their nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rates drop in March: Greene, from 12.1 to 8.5 percent; Owen, from 10.6 to 8.6 percent; Morgan, from 10 to 9.1 percent; Lawrence, from 12.1 to 10.9 percent; and Brown, from 11.8 to 9.8 percent.

“We haven’t seen the (state) unemployment rate drop by 1 percent in a quarter since 1993,” said Mark W. Everson, commissioner of the Department of Workforce Development, in a prepared statement. “We also saw solid job growth in March, particularly in the manufacturing sector.”

Hmmm, Mark Everson – I was wondering what had happened to this guy (here – first bullet).

Also, it looks like we have more “smoke and mirrors” here on unemployment from Gov. (and another former Bushie) Mitch Daniels (maybe the reason why he decided not to run for prez because he’d get called out for this stuff, instead of the supposed intrusion into his personal life as Smerky alleged here).

And from here…

Hundreds of thousands of Indiana residents are unemployed and underemployed. Although the state’s unemployment rate is slightly better than that of its neighboring states, a striking number of people here — a significantly greater percentage than in Illinois or Ohio — have simply left the work force altogether since the dawn of the recession.

For the second year in a row, Hoosiers ranked fifth nationally in personal bankruptcies, at 7.1 people per 1,000 residents. (Illinois came in 11th.) Indiana’s median family income is just 86 percent of that of the rest of the country.

Property tax caps, put in place over the past few years, offer relief to limping homeowners but have pushed school boards and city leaders, they say, into rounds of budget cutting and layoffs.

Well, it looks like the Genesis Casket Company may be hiring, as noted here (I’ll let you, dear reader, inject any symbolism you want into that).

Iowa

When it comes to the Hawkeye State, it’s really impossible to discuss much of anything without noting also that state’s chief U.S. congressional numbskull, and that would be Repug Steve King of course; as noted here, he compared electricians, teachers and other workers to bushels of soybeans and corn.

And from here in a story in March…

DES MOINES, Iowa - Improved unemployment levels made Iowa ineligible for federal funds.

The U.S. government told Iowa Workforce Development that the state did not qualify for $14.5 million in benefits because Iowa's unemployment rate is improving, according to Rep. Lance Horbach, R-Tama, chairman of the House Labor Committee.

The funds would have extended unemployment benefits to about 7,000 Iowa workers who have been unemployed for more than a year, according to Sen. Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque.

Benefits would have been retroactive. The federal government looked at revised unemployment numbers. Those numbers showed the three-month rolling average had dropped to 6.1 percent unemployment.

"That's good news unless you've been unemployed for more than a year," Jochum said.

I couldn’t determine how many Iowans fall into that category, but if you want more jobless numbers for the state, here they are.

Also, this tells us that Iowa was due to close 37 state unemployment offices in July, though the Iowa City office will stay open (here…and here is a link to the Iowa jobs center – good luck, all those who qualify).

Update 9/17/11: I've said it before and I'll say it again - somebody has to elect these clowns (here).

Kansas

This tells us that the state’s unemployment rate was 6.5 percent in July, which isn’t terrible. The problem, though, is that that gives Gov. Sam Brownback and his pals even more of an excuse to wage war on public sector employees (here) and cut back on unemployment benefits (here).

(And I’m sorry, but I must point out again the idiocy of electing governors like Brownback, Mary Fallin, John Kasich, Rick Snyder and Hosni Mubarak Walker by the voters of those states. Really, if these people had half a brain, what else did they think would happen?)

And as noted here…

Economic development and community leaders throughout western Kansas agree the challenges facing the region are four-fold: depopulation, few jobs, an aging population and drought.

But just remember that speaking of the climate crisis is “condescending elitism” according to Kansas Repug U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, as noted here (uh huh).

Kentucky

Another place where time has apparently stood still…

This tells us that the state’s newest senator, Rand Paul, lied in March (shocking, I know) when he said that public sector employees don’t contribute to their pensions and health care (like to know what his contributions are as a sitting U.S. Senator). And not to be outdone, his “mentor,” Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao himself, just loves himself those “stim” projects in his home state but hates them in DC (here).

Continuing, this tells us that Repug State Rep Lonnie Napier (Lancaster) and Dem (!) Greg Stumbo (Prestonburg) co-sponsored a bill to drug test welfare recipients, and…

Napier said he has no intention of drug-testing all of Kentucky's unemployed -- only those who receive "free handouts" from the state.

No, not much he doesn’t.

Oh, and by the way, this tells us that Kentucky’s preliminary unemployment rate fell below 10 percent in May for the first time in more than two years.

I kind of feel about this state the way I do about Florida – I’m sure a lot of good people live there, but man, does this state do nothing but elect lousy Repug politicians who do nothing but sell them out (for that reason, the state as a whole deserves very little of my sympathy).

Louisiana

The unemployment rate for the state was 8.2 percent last May, as noted here (and this tells us of a Raceland man who pled guilty to Katrina-related unemployment insurance fraud). Also, here is a list of job fairs in the state (some for September), and this tells us of the “summertime blues” for those employed on the Gulf Coast (this is about the only recent information I could find for the state).

I’ll try to pick this up again next week.

Thursday Stuff

Couldn't quite finish my post for today - hopefully tomorrow...

This young girl makes more sense here than most adults - so why is it absolutely no surprise that she and her like-minded friends have been targeted by Fix Noise?...



...and I like this tune, even if the video is a bit of a parody of that a-little-too-realistic creepy movie with Michael Douglas (and no, I don't condone the behavior in the film).

Wednesday Stuff

(Hopefully back to posting tomorrow...)

A real all-timer of a "Worst Persons" by K.O. here - love the impression of you-know-who at the end...



...and this goes out to our beloved corporate media and others who insist on taking "Goodhair" Perry seriously as a presidential candidate (and in a related vein, I give you this and this)...



...oh, and by the way, go ahead and secede, you ten-gallon asshat...



Update 8/19/11: Interesting Perry investment here (and great catch by Think Progress)...

...and harking back to K.O. and Moon Unit Bachmann again, I think that, if the King were still with us, he would dedicate this to her.

Tuesday Stuff

Hey, before anyone laughs at Professor "Space Aliens" Krugman, remember that we were once told we had to spend about a gazillion dollars because of a "missile defense gap," which made about as much sense (here - there was a lot about Bill Maher's summer finale that I ended up not liking, particularly from Sarah Palin's moviemaker, but world traveller Anthony Bourdain of The Food Channel Network also appeared and he pointed out how much of our infrastructure is a joke compared to other countries)...



Update 8/20/11: I think we have a completely accidental convergence of ideas here (you'd have to be a total idiot to take Fix Noise seriously).

...and I don't know about you, but I'm in the mood to rock out a bit.

Tuesday Mashup (8/16/11)

I give you Bernie Goldberg, of all people, trying to call out the civility police (here)…

Well, if it wasn’t obvious before it sure ought to be now. The liberal media elite have gone around the bend and over the cliff. The Crazy Train they’ve been riding has finally crashed.

And it’s all because of those nasty conservative Tea Party Republicans.

The same liberal journalists who won’t call a real terrorist a terrorist can’t go 10 seconds without calling conservative Republicans terrorists. Or “Wahhabis,” as Chris Mathews described them on MSNBC.

Or “Hezbollah,” as Tom Friedman described them in the New York Times.

Or as ‘suicide bombers” as Tina Brown the editor of Newsweek described them on “Morning Joe.”

And just in case you’re dense and still don’t get it, we can all thank Peter Goodman, formerly of the New York Times and now an editor at the Huffington Post, who didn’t mince words when he wrote: “They are acting like terrorists. Yes, terrorists.”

Oh yes, such name calling is some impolite, isn’t it (here – and that’s assuming that Goldberg is “shooting straight” in his remarks at Fix Noise today, which is a highly dubious assumption, especially since he doesn't link to anyone).

And on top of that, former Bushco flak Marc Thiessen tells us the following (here)…

President Obama is reportedly gearing up to “kill” Mitt Romney in the general election…

And when you click the link from Thiessen to Politico, you discover the following (the supposed attribution) …

“Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney,” said a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House.

Got that? Politico printed a quote that should have been attributed to “a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House” by name (gee, that narrows it down to how many hundred people, I wonder?), which Thiessen promptly used to claim that Obama is “reportedly” gearing up to “kill” Romney.

And that’s exactly the same as Goldberg defending the teabaggers from the oh-so-nasty name calling of that elite liberal media (though Goldberg has nothing to say about this).

And that’s also exactly the same as Sarah Palin’s notorious “crosshairs” map that included the district of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Sure it is (and by the way, President Hopey Changey, I think a certain "prominent Democratic strategist" needs a visit to the woodshed...need to tighten up the message discipline a bit).

Update 8/17/11: Um, speaking of the Obama campaign, I wonder if anyone bothered to point out to this Ray Sandoval character that the "firebaggers" (huh?) have been pretty much ABSOLUTELY FREAKING RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING? (h/t Atrios).

I can see that Number 44 is going to do his best to make the 2012 presidential campaign as competitive for the other side as possible.

Next, I give you the latest straw man from Bill Huizenga (here)…

We didn't let the President take a single dollar from Social Security or Medicare benefits, or troop or veterans’ pay.

Proof? Anywhere in sight? Bueller??

This is typical for Huizenga who, as noted here (third bullet), took campaign funds from the family of Erik Prince, head of what was once called Blackwater. He also once suggested that US intelligence agents who claimed there were no WMDs in Iraq were terrorist sympathizers. Oh, and Huizenga, along with all of his other Repug pals in the House, voted for that horrific HR 3 bill from Chris Smith that attempted to redefine rape (dear God).

And here are his latest misadventures (as I continue to say, somebody out there has to elect these clowns).

Further, The Daily Tucker haz a sad over the latest wingnut movie escapade to bomb at theaters, this one from a former half-term Alaska governor who quit her job to cash in on her celebrity (here)…

Conservatives are up in arms that a film celebrating the Navy Seals who killed Osama bin Laden will hit theaters less than a month before the 2012 presidential election.

Hollywood routinely produces left-of-center content, but a cinematic reminder of the Obama administration’s crowning achievement smacks of an unpaid political ad, a cinematic October surprise.

Indeed, it’s just so awful when politicians use the arts to further their agenda timed for an election, isn’t it (a debatable claim anyway since it was the Navy Seals who got bin Laden and not Number 44).

Remember that horrible Citizens United ruling by The Supremes? Anybody remember how that whole thing got started? It was over something called “Hillary: The Movie” produced by the Roger Stone group “Citizens United Not Timid” (get it?). The group created ads to promote the movie, but the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the commercials violated provisions in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain–Feingold) restricting "electioneering communications" 30 days before primaries. So the group appealed the ruling to The Supremes, and the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR ended up enshrining corporate “person-hood” once and for all, opening up the gusher of corporate cash into our political campaigns that, IMHO, will drown us all one day (absent congressional legislation in response, which I definitely don’t anticipate from the bunch in power at the moment).

So basically, if I were a conservative, I wouldn’t bitch about how their movies are unpopular (though they are). One of their pieces of tripe has done far too much damage as it is.

Also, the following letter appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday…

In U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey's recent op-ed, "Overzealous state agency threatens Pa. jobs" (Aug. 8) he maintains that the Environmental Protection Agency goes too far in enforcing the successful Clean Air Act's health and safety standards that protect us from toxics and other pollutants.

Apparently, Sen. Toomey isn't persuaded by the fact that EPA's clean air standards saved an estimated 160,000 lives last year alone, or that economic studies by the independent Economic Policy Institute and the Office of Management and Budget show that updated clean air standards actually create jobs by spurring clean energy technology investments.

On the contrary, Sen. Toomey's idea for getting the EPA out of our hair with its life-saving and job-creating programs is to create more bureaucracy and gridlock in Washington, exactly what we don't need. He has introduced a bill to place more roadblocks in front of the EPA each time it issues rules enforcing the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws. That would mean that EPA enforcement standards, which already can take years to put in place and still more years to take effect, would drag on through a regulatory limbo even longer.

Certainly the federal government must take into account the effects of environmental protections. But the Toomey plan would give industry lobbyists new opportunities to stop or water down steps to protect children, older Americans and communities from dangerous pollution. And it's part of an all-out assault by industry to strangle EPA's ability to enforce laws against polluters.

To take one current example, Sen. Toomey and his industry allies are opposing new standards to reduce dangerous mercury and air toxics spewing from power plants and other facilities, doing their best to halt or at least drag out the process. Meanwhile, many of the more than 7 million American children suffering from asthma will remain at higher risk for asthma attacks, emergency room visits, or worse because they are breathing in these pollutants.

Instead of coming up with new schemes to create more gridlock in Washington, Toomey should support the EPA's efforts to protect our children and create more clean energy jobs at the same time.

State Rep. Steve Santarsiero
Lower Makefield/Newtown

Steve is “on the job” once more, and Toomey remains utterly wretched (and to contact our PA-31 state rep, click here).

Finally, last Saturday August 13th marked the 50th anniversary of the construction of The Berlin Wall, and in response, George Will gladly took the opportunity to bash President John F. Kennedy over it (here)…

Fifty years ago, a metaphor became concrete. Beginning on Aug. 13, 1961, along West Berlin’s 27-mile border, the Iron Curtain became tangible in a wall of precast slabs of concrete. It came down 22 years ago, but the story of how it rose, as told in Frederick Kempe’s book “Berlin 1961,” compels an unflattering assessment of John Kennedy. His serial blunders that year made it the most incompetent first year of any presidency.

As Wikipedia tells us here, the construction of the wall was the culmination of years of Communist brinksmanship on the issue of what to do about east and west Berlin; in 1948, Joseph Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin (the “Berlin Airlift” followed, in which the U.S. participated with other countries). Stalin lifted the blockade, but movement from east to west Germany continued. In 1955, Stalin and the Soviet Union gave East Germany control over the movement of its population to West Germany, and in 1957, East Germany introduced a new passport law to stem the flow to the west, which actually ended up increasing movement out of East Berlin (including a “brain drain” of middle-class professionals).

Am I going to tell you that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev didn’t sense weakness on Kennedy’s part from the Bay of Pigs fiasco and see an opportunity to build the wall? I’ll let historians decide that (a group that definitely excludes Will). What I am saying is that it’s typically ridiculous for a pusillanimous little toad like him to suggest that everything was just hunky-dory in East and West Berlin until JFK bungled everything.

And 1961 was “the most incompetent first year of any presidency”? Really?

As Wikipedia again tells us here, Kennedy established the Peace Corps on March 1st. Also, Alan Shepard became the first U.S. astronaut launched into space via the Freedom 7 rocket on May 5th (and on May 25th, Kennedy proclaimed our commitment to putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade). And for what it’s worth, Time Magazine named him Person of the Year for 1961.

See, JFK really doesn’t have the benefit of an echo chamber to come to his defense the same way The Sainted Ronnie R does, so it’s up to filthy, unkempt blogger types such as yours truly to “pick up that mantle” (and speaking of Number 40 and milestones, he signed the first of his ruinous tax cuts into law on August 13, 1981 – just sayin’).

Monday Stuff

Hopefully back to posting tomorrow - we'll see...

Also, want to know why unions matter? Check this out (more here)...



...and Robert Reich's hair is on fire, as it were, and rightly so, here (and President Hopey Changey is running out of time to get that whole "vision thing" on jobs and the economy - you can win over all the moderates and independents you want, but it doesn't make sense if you've given virtually nothing (hint: JOBSJOBSJOBSJOBSJOBSJOBS) to the core constituency that elected you)...



...oh, and here's another wingnut lie (more here)...



...and here's a late-summer number from some local kids - hope you like it.

Sunday Stuff

This should not have happened. It is an abomination that it happened at all, to say nothing of the numbers of times it has happened to our brave service people to date (and part of me would pay money to hear what those yammering idiots in Iowa would say about it, probably the same blather about "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here," etc. And eight deployments??!!).

Oh, and by the way, the Democrats are hardly blameless here also, including Number 44...



...and shifting the mood, happy 70th birthday to David Crosby (sorry, no video).