Updated Jobs Graph

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

As the stimulus money became depleted, the number of new jobs fizzled out. There were zero new jobs in the private sector for the month of August.

Although the Regressive republicans and Teabaggers campaigned a year ago on "jobs, jobs, jobs," their leader, John Boner, hasn't come up with a single jobs bill in 8 months.  The graph shows exactly why we need another, bigger stimulus bill, to repair crumbling schools, highways and bridges and put millions to work.

Disappointed Media

Disappointed?

CBSEveningNews 

by CBSNews

National Hurricane Center reporting that #HurricaneIrene is now a Tropical Storm; it crossed Coney Island at 8:45a ET with winds at 65 MPH

That's 10 mph lower than the minimum criteria for being labeled a hurricane.

CBSNews
by CBSNews
#Irene downgraded to Tropical Storm as it makes landfall in NYC; 4M homes without power along East Coast bit.ly/olIjdN

The bigger story than the 4 day hype about Irene is why four million people would lose power when a very minimal hurricane sweeps through from N Carolina to NY.

And let the sarcasm begin:

BorowitzReport Andy Borowitz
Tomorrow will be sunny - or as the Weather Channel says, "The sun will scorch the Earth with its savage fury." #irene

BorowitzReport Andy Borowitz

If the Weather Channel loses any more credibility it will be Fox. #irene

 
BorowitzReport Andy Borowitz
Years from now, we'll all remember where we were when Irene was supposed to hit but didn't. #irene

BorowitzReport Andy Borowitz
NYC returning to normal. Just saw a woman steal a taxi from a blind guy. #Irene

DavidShuster David Shuster
Little damage seen from Irene...except to the already awful credibility of most news orgs. 

Eugene_Robinson Eugene Robinson
Media covg of #Irene was self-fulfilling. If you gear all the way up for a Big Big Story, that's what you usually find.

RadioVegan Radio Vegan
Streakers have fun behind humorless Weather Channel reporter. huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/27/hur…

From a blog in the Daily Telegraph:

The truth is that the dire warning beforehand suited both politicians and journalists. Just as with the minor earthquake that shook the east coast last week causing no loss of life and virtually no damage, Irene became a huge story because it was where the media lived.

The media and politicians enjoy a symbiotic relationship during possible impending disasters. The resultant perfect storm of hype over Irene runs the risk of making Americans even more like to ignore warnings in the future.

Read more here.

 

Hurricane Hype All Over Again

This would be a great week for Congress to pass laws they don't want anybody to hear about; for Congressmen to get caught in scandals; for administration resignations, since nobody will hear about them.  Better than a typical Friday afternoon "news dump" when these things typically are revealed, we have this ridiculous wall to wall hurricane coverage obscuring every actual news story. CNN, msnbc, and even Fake News are all refusing to cover news on their "news networks" and instead, showing video of traffic lights blowing in the wind, and throwing it to the ubiquitous idiot reporter being blown, weatherwise, on the beach.

From someone who's lived in South Florida for 40 years, and seen overblown, over hyped storm coverage for decades, here's why there will not be the death and devastation the media is hoping for all over New York City.

First, hurricanes need a warm ocean to strengthen. Irene has been brushing land since it came ashore in North Carolina. Hurricanes always fall apart on land.

Second, the farther north it goes, the cooler the ocean is. Oh, and did I mention, most of it's over land?  Only half is on water. It probably will just be a tropical storm by the time it reaches NYC.

Sorry to burst your bubble, news media.

Thank goodness David Shuster is one of the few who understands the difference between news and hype. As he said in a couple of recent tweets:

The rain and possible tornadoes may cause some damage. But as news stories go, Hurricane Irene is a "bust." The ongoing hype is silly.

I have no issues with news orgs pointing out possible nightmare scenarios past few days. They won't be realized. Report the facts. Cat 1.


I'm not belittling half million without power. But that relates to crumbling U-S infrastructure, not mother nature "lashing" the U-S.

Exactly.

Pay to Yell at Your Congressman

Rightwing congressmen are not holding free town hall meetings very frequently these days.  From Think Progress:

Yesterday, seven unemployed constituents of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) staged a sit-in at his office in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to protest the congressman’s decision not to hold any free public town halls during the August recess. An additional 100 protesters picketed outside the office. Politico reported this week that Ryan, Chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, will only speak to residents who are willing to pay $15 for access. 

It’s customary for representatives to host free town halls open to the public so constituents can ask questions and weigh in on their elected officials’ votes. But Ryan and other conservative congressman who have been facing angry crowds recently have decided to limit their availability to only those willing to open their wallets. This didn’t sit well with many of Ryan’s constituents who are struggling just to get by and don’t think they should have to pay to get an audience with their congressman.

Teabaggers' Popularity Plummets

The far rightwing fringe of the Regressive party -- the ones with teabags stapled to their hats -- are now more disliked by most Americans than some of the much maligned groups like Atheists and Muslims, according to a new poll from the NY Times.

The Teabaggers, who have taken control of the republican party and forced Orange John Boner to take the US to the brink of bankruptcy during the weeks of debt ceiling wrangling, now have an approval rating of only 20% and their disapproval rating, which was only 18% one year ago, has skyrocketed to 40%.

In addition, when asked, "Who do you think is mostly to blame for the current federal budget deficit?" those polled responded

Bush 44%
Obama 15%
Congress 15%
Someone else 10%.

Seems like they got that right, too.

Read more from the New York Times.

Which Far Right Regressive Can Turn the Clock Back Further?

A blog that perfectly sums it up by national radio talk show host Mike Malloy.

Rick Perry has declared war.  On the EPA.  So have all the other GOP candidates.

The EPA is evil because it seeks to regulate the use (abuse?) of natural resources in such a way to minimize harm and reduce risk.  So of course it must be eradicated. Newt wants to padlock the building and Bachmann wants to pray it away.  After all, how can anything natural in the world – like carbon dioxide – be possibly bad for you?  It was all created by God, Amen.

Do we really want a President who doesn’t believe in global climate change?  Or even simple pollution?  Or evolution?  What are we saying, collectively, as a nation if we honestly contemplate putting one of these medieval morons in the White House?  What, was Dubya too intellectual for the Teabaggers?  His malaprops too cerebral for these cretins?

We’re moving backwards, Truthseekers, through time and cultural evolution.  But that’s the ultimate goal of Capitalism run amok – feudalism.  A nation of 1% Lords, who own everything and 99% serfs who own nothing. We’re almost there . . .

She Really is a Witch

Remember Christine "I am not a witch" O'Donnell? Well she allegedly wrote a book and appeared on CNN's Piers Morgan Show last night. He asks her about a topic that she covers in her book -- Don't Ask Don't Tell -- and she refuses to answer, pretending it's not relevant. Keep in mind she's there hawking her book and this is one of the subjects she herself mentions in her book. 

She insists that it's the guest on a talk show who should decide what's discussed.  And then she walks off because he's not asking the questions to which she has pat answers memorized.



Update: The very next morning she hung up during a phone interview.

KXRK X96 RFH - Christine O'Donnell by Magallanes90

Quitting twice in two days... She's making Sarah Palin jealous.

8/19/11 UPDATE: Now that two days have gone by, my hunch that this was all a pre-planned publicity stunt seems to be proving itself. Think about it. Christine O'Donnell hasn't been seen in a year, since she lost the election. Now she's written a book. She wants to sell the book. Why do a run-of-the-mill interview on CNN that will be over and forgotten in one hour, when you can walk off the set, play the victim, and milk the media attention for days on end?  Just this morning she was all over the TV again, including the Today Show. Additional national media, additional attention, and most of all, additional sales are all part of the plan.  Nice work. You had us all fooled for a day.

Regressive Republican Rick Perry Enters Race for President

Just what we needed. Another arrogant, fake little cowboy from Texas, with attitude, swagger, and nothing more.

This guy loves America so much he wants to be president -- or secede from it. As Salon.com's Joan Walsh wrote, "Perry's Texas leads the nation in minimum-wage jobs, uninsured children, high school dropouts and pollution. He balanced the state's budget with stimulus money he railed against. His record won't back up his bragging."

Read more here. 

Chart from Think Progress.

Starting to look familiar already.

Michelle Bachmann Wins Iowa Straw Poll

Here she is celebrating.  Can't seem to get enough of those corn dogs.

The actual results, as if they mean anything:

1. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (4823, 28.55%)

2. Congressman Ron Paul (4671, 27.65%)

3. Governor Tim Pawlenty (2293, 13.57%)

4. Senator Rick Santorum (1657, 9.81%)

5. Herman Cain (1456, 8.62%)

6. Governor Rick Perry (718, 3.62%) write-in

7. Governor Mitt Romney (567, 3.36%)

8. Speaker Newt Gingrich (385, 2.28%)

9. Governor Jon Huntsman (69, 0.41%)

10. Congressman Thad McCotter (35, 0.21%) 

The Iowa Straw Poll is a strange mix between a county fair and a political convention, where people typically listen to speeches, applaud or yell at the candidates, and eat deep fried butter on a stick. (Paramedics are standing by.) It's totally meaningless.

In 2007 Willard "Mitt" Romney won the Straw Poll, but McCain was the Republican nominee and Barack Obama won the election.
In 1999 it actually worked: Dubya won the Straw Poll and was the nominee.
In 1995, Bob Dole and Phil Gramm tied to win the Straw Poll; Dole was the Republican nominee and Bill Clinton won the election.
In 1987, crazy evangelist Pat Robertson won the Straw Poll; but George H W Bush was the Republican nominee and won the election.
in 1979, George H W Bush won the Straw Poll; but Ronald Reagan was the Republican nominee and won the election.

 

Have another corn dog and enjoy it while you can. 

Update: I was thinking it would be great if only we could get a pic of Marcus Bachmann eating a corn dog.  One day later The Google granted my wish!

Tea Party Downgrade

The rightwing's intractability and lack of increased revenue are specifically mentioned in S&P's report on why they downgraded the US from an AAA to an AA+ nation:

"Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now
assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012,
remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority
of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise
revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as
America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective,
and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt
ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in
the debate over fiscal policy.
It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options."
  
In addition, the far rightwing Teabag Wearers who claim to be such Constitutional sticklers, blatantly rooted for default and not raising the debt ceiling. This would have specifically been unconstitutional since the Constitution says the debt of the US govt "shall not be questioned."

So the bottom line is the Regressives in Congress -- controlled by their own minority of far rightwing Newbies With Teabags Stapled to Their Hats -- refused to compromise at all, they got what they wanted, they acted unconstitutionally and our collective credit rating was lowered thanks to them.

And then there's the other thought that says, who cares?  Standard & Poors were the idiots who gave Lehman Brothers triple-A ratings until they collapsed as well.

Dow Jones Disaster

Not since the worst days of the Great Recession in October of 2008 (during the Cheney/Bush disaster) has the Dow Jones plunged to this level, and lost over 500 points in one day.

Thanks, Regressive republican Congress and Teabaggers, for holding the country hostage so you could force through your agenda of taking in absolutely no additional revenue in the form of taxes on millionaires, or even the closing of tax loopholes that corporations take advantage of.  Thanks for bringing us to the brink of economic disaster to have your way, a technique no party has ever abused before in American history, bringing the US on the edge of defaulting on our loans. Thanks for not only refusing to spend money to push this sluggish economy forward, but for actually cutting spending and firing more and more government employees, thereby slowing down the economy even more, adding to the unemployment rolls, and diminishing the amount of payroll taxes the US collects because there are fewer people working.

The investors, speculators, buyers, and everyone remotely connected with the stock market are so jinxed by your selfish, destructive, un-American behavior, that the market lost over 500 points, plunging almost as low as it did at the end of the Bush administration. Investors fear plummeting into another recession.

Remember this graph? It's the last year of the Bush administration and the first year of the Obama administration.  You can see Obama's first year is a mirror image of Bush's last year.  Bush left after losing 750,000 jobs a month in the center of the graph. We lost fewer and fewer jobs during the Obama administration, as seen by the smaller and smaller blue lines, and then began gaining jobs. Last year we were gaining around 200,000 jobs a month!

Oh, but the Regressive republicans wouldn't stand for that very long.  Nope. Are they going to stand for economic improvement with a president that's the "wrong" party, the "wrong" age, the "wrong" color? Not with another election coming up in 2012.

The stimulus money that was pushing the economy ran out. There's been no talk of another stimulus. So instead of spending more temporarily to get us out of this deep, deadly Bush recession, the Regressive republicans did the exact opposite: cutting programs, cutting funding, and firing government employees.

Let's hope voters remember who insisted on this debt ceiling / job killing / spending cuts bill next year.

Fox News Owner in Giant Scandal

This is now so much more than a story about hacking. It's about bribery, deception, interfering with the police investigat­ion of a homicide, invasion of privacy, political corruption, collusion and immoral practices.

August 16 UPDATE: A former News of the World reporter has alleged that there was a massive cover-up of phone hacking at the paper. Details here.

July 19 UPDATE: Sean Hoare, the whistleblower to this whole phone hacking scandal, was found dead in his apartment earlier this week.

July 18 UPDATE:  Britain's second-highest cop, police commissioner John Yates has resigned because of his refusal to investigate phone hacking in 2009.

July 17 SECOND UPDATE: Late today Britain's top police chief quit in the face of allegations that police officers had accepted money from Murdoch's News of the World paper and not done enough to investigate hacking charges that surfaced as far back as 2005. This has apparently been going on for a long time and the corruption runs deep. More info here from Reuters.

July 17 UPDATE: Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's former British CEO,  has been arrested in London.

July 15 SECOND UPDATE:  Another major player in Rupert's criminal corporation resigns... From the Associated Press:
LONDON (AP) — Rupert Murdoch accepted the resignation of The Wall Street Journal's publisher and the chief of his British operations on Friday as the once-defiant media mogul struggled to control an escalating phone hacking scandal with apologies to the public and the family of a murdered schoolgirl.

July 15 UPDATE: Murdoch's Chief Executive of News Corp, Rebekah Brooks, has resigned as of this morning.

July 14 UPDATE: The FBI has begun an investigation on Murdoch and News Corp's alleged hacking of the phones of 9/11 victims.  Several prominent politicians, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), have called for investigations into News Corp. activities to see if any U.S. laws were broken by the company. As of today 9 arrests have been made.
___________________________

The world is caving in around Rupert Murdock.  And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

It all started in England when Prince William dealt with a knee injury.  Information from his phone conversations with his doctor, which no one else knew about, mysteriously appeared in Rupert's News of the World tabloid.  This started an investigation called for by Buckingham Palace and continued by The Guardian, a well-respected British newspaper.

Turns out the voice mails of 4,000 private citizens were hacked by Rupert's minions -- including home and mobile phones.  Members of the Royal Family, the Prime Minister, even a 13 year old girl who disappeared were hacked.  Rupert's minions hacked the girl's phone and listened to cries of appeal from her parents.  When voice mail messages were full, these scumbags deleted them to make room for more.  This led police to believe the girl was listening to, and deleting, her messages.  Eventually they found her dead body.

So in addition to the criminal activity of hacking into 4,000 private phones, they interfered with the investigation of a homicide.

Scumbag Murdoch's employees also hacked phones of deceased British soldiers killed in Afghanistan.  Now it's becoming evident that he and his minions hacked into the phones of the victims of 9/11.  Collusion and corruption even included top officials of Scotland Yard.

Who else has Rupert Murdoch and his band of criminals hacked in this country?

After 168 years of publishing, Rupert was forced to shut down his News of the World tabloid last weekend. The final Sunday edition was free of advertisements.  Many non-profit organizations that were given the chance to run free ads in the final paper declined.

The managing editor of the News of the World tabloid is now managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, also owned by Rupert Murdoch.

A spokesperson for the family that formerly owned the Wall Street Journal has stated earlier today that they rue the day they sold their newspaper to him.

The far reaching scandal has forced Murdoch to withdraw his $12 billion bid to purchase satellite giant British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) satellite news service. He has apparently given up (for now) his obsession to completely take over the news media in Britain.

Murdoch's News Corp. is a criminal enterprise and needs to be investigated and shut down.  So far 2 of his editors have been arrested. In the last several days the value of News Corp stock has dropped $10 billion.  Rupert has been purchasing his own stock by the billions in order to attempt to keep the value up.

Criminal activity this widespread is systemic and cannot possibly occur without the knowledge of News Corp's top officials, including Rupert Murdoch.

The investigation is just beginning in both the US and England.

Although this story is huge, it is barely being discussed on Fox.

Excellent article here from the Washington Post.

Interesting that when Sarah Palin's email was hacked, Bill O'Reilly said "the hackers...should GO TO PRISON FOR A VERY LONG TIME."  You only need watch the first 20 seconds below. Apparently hacking is a very serious crime when Fox's owner isn't the one doing it.



So let's see if I understand this. If you hack into The Quitter's email, you should "go to jail for a long time." If Fox's owner hacks into 4,000 people's phones including the Royal Family's and Gordon Brown's, it's not a story that deserves much attention from this same Fox Hole.

Republican Voters Are Like Casey Anthony Jurors

They sit back and let 'em get away with murder over and over again.

Jobs Report Slows for Month of June

Only about 20,000 jobs were gained last month.

The Regressive republicans want it both ways.  They complain and whine about jobs and yet on the local, state and national level they're firing government workers by the tens of thousands, including teachers, cops and firefighters.  This last jobs report shows that private sector jobs increased by about 60,000 (still not high enough, of course) but minus the 40,000 that were fired from state and local positions, the net increase was about 20,000.

So they're whining about jobs one minute and firing thousands the next. They actually want the jobless rate to increase for their own political gain next election year, as un-American and treasonous as that sounds. The Ditz from Minnesota admitted that yesterday, when a CNBC reporter said as unemployment rises so does your chance to be elected next year, to which she replied with a big cheery "I hope so!"

And let's remember that last year the Regressive republicans won back the House by running on "jobs, jobs jobs!"

So, Mr Weeper of the House, where are the jobs?  Have John Boner and the Regressive Republicans in the House put even one jobs bill on the table? No.  They only things they've become obsessed with are abortion, same sex marriage and even more tax breaks for millionaires.

It's simple. Without a big stimulus putting work and money in the pockets of Middle Americans, they can't spend money and push the economy forward again.

Giving greater tax breaks to millionaires does nothing. They've had these tax breaks for 10 years and aren't handing out jobs -- they're sitting on their money. If the middle class gets jobs and money, THEY SPEND IT. More buying = more selling. Supply and demand both rise. If the middle class has money to spend, the economy moves forward.  Problem solved.