I adore visuals. They're so easy to understand, even for the GOP:
The Bikini Graph is one of my favorites (and Rachel Maddow's). Think Progress points out that today's numbers refute GOP talking points claiming that the stimulus created government jobs, but the private sector? Not so much. Well, GOP, about that? Not so much:
[T]he GOP should be pleased to note that, of the 290,000 jobs created in April, 231,000 of them were in the private sector. The private sector has actually added 523,000 new jobs in 2010.
Psst! GOP... The stimulus is working. It takes time, just as it took years to screw up the economy, it will take years to turn it around. Just as it will take decades to deal with the Gulf oil volcano. Just as it will take years to improve what's left of our health care system.
And guess what? It all moves along faster when you don't obstruct at every turn. Just an observation.
Unemployment rates fell or remained level in three-quarters of the 372 largest metropolitan areas, a sign that the economic recovery is widespread.
The Labor Department said Wednesday the jobless rate dropped in 69 percent of metro areas last month from February. It rose in 24 percent of large cities and remained the same in the rest.
That's an improvement from February, when the unemployment rate decreased in 51 percent of metro areas and increased in one-third.
The report follows other recent encouraging news about jobs. Employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the government said earlier this month, the most significant gain in three years.
Little by little, we're seeing improvement. The Party of No can yell and scream all they want, but numbers are numbers. The abysmal Bush economy can't possibly be reversed quickly, but we are seeing increasing signs of recovery.
Of course, the GOP will take full credit when we finally pull out of it, because, of course, they were such a big help.
By GottaLaff I just love winning skirmishes. Skirmish-winning is my favorite pastime. Especially when it's against the Rushpublics. Especially when it provides badly needed benefits to jobless Americans.
Democrats in the Senate won an initial skirmish Monday to restore unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of jobless people despite Republican criticism that it would add $9 billion to the nation's debt.
The 60-34 vote killed a GOP filibuster against debating the measure, which would extend jobless benefits through May 5 along with short-term extensions of several other lapsed programs.
Hmm, I wonder if anyone from the right side of the aisle voted with the Dems.
Uh-oh. Scott "Pink Leather Shorts" Brown did. Again. What will the Tea Tantrumers say?
Collins and three other Republicans - Olympia Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and George Voinovich of Ohio - voted Monday to advance the short-term measure.
What mavericks. Maybe that's where John McCain's nickname went.
As for all the GOP whining about deficits:
"Unemployment extensions have always been considered emergency spending, and there's a reason for that," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "Unemployment insurance is a form of stimulus, but offsetting the extension of this program would negate the stimulative impact. It would be robbing Peter to pay Paul."
The wobbly housing market is showing a rare sign of strength: pending home sales were up significantly in February, a report released Monday said, suggesting that Americans took advantage of a tax credit for home buyers.
Economists said Monday’s data suggested buyers were re-entering the market as the April 30 deadline approached for a government tax credit of up to $8,000. The tax credit drove up sales rapidly in the fall, when it was originally set to expire, but it has been slow to propel the market this spring.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the association, said Monday’s report “may signal the early stages of a second surge of home sales.”
Too bad George Bush still isn't in charge. Things would obviously be so much better.
Dear Rushpublic Party of No, Please do continue those obstructionist tactics in light of this news. It's working so well for you.
The U.S. Census Bureau expects to add up to 750,000 workers to its payroll by May, a hiring binge that could knock the unemployment rate down by as much as a half-point.
The once-a-decade census is coming at the best possible time for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, who have taken political lumps for more than a year over a jobless rate that stands at 9.7 percent. [...]
“This is the best-timed census you could ever dream of,” said Heidi Shierholz, who tracks the labor market at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. She believes the March unemployment report will show the economy added jobs instead of subtracting them.
Wendy Button, chief of the decennial recruiting branch of the Census Bureau:
“This is in no way going to solve our unemployment situation [...] It’s going to be a blip. A big blip, but it’s going to be a blip.”
Still, it’s a blip that could help Obama and Democrats.
And that's the kind of blip we like.
Besides, if 750,000 people can make some money, that's good news.
The Senate voted 70-28 on Wednesday morning to pass a $15 billion jobs package, giving Senate Democrats their first legislative victory of the year.
Thirteen Republicans joined 55 Democratsand two independents to vote for the bill. Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) was the only Democrat to vote against it.
Final passage of the bill was made possible by the support of Sen. Scott Brown (Mass.) and four other Republicans who voted Monday to cut off a GOP filibuster.
Democratic leaders must now negotiate the differences between the Senate bill and a much larger House jobs bill, which costs $154 billion.
Wait. What? A former Gitmo detainee is running around loose? Where there are homes he could break into, children he could kidnap, families he could terrorize?
For Americans haunted by reports of Gitmo detainees being released only to resume their terror tactics, [Taj] Mohammed offers the rare opposite of a one-time detainee who instead of hiding from the Americans or openly despising them, now works for them.
Oh come on. What could a former Gitmo prisoner possibly have to offer? What does he know that any American wouldn't? Right?
He now speaks English, Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.
Wrong.
Well, he must have been thrown in the clink for a reason. America would never, ever imprison someone for absolutely no reason. Like what they did to Fayiz al-Kandari (see below). That would be wrong.
"He never did anything to deserve the detention to which he was subjected," his lawyer Rashkind to ABC News in an email. "When I was appointed to represent him, after years of his detention, we demonstrated to the government that he was simply a goat herder. Shortly after, he was released without explanation."
Oh.
Okay, fine. But what could possibly qualify him for a job?
His village of 30 people is not far from an American base, so he attended a veterinarian clinic held by Agribusiness Development Team from California National Guard 40th ID.
Yeah, but how essential could he be to anything we'd be doing?
[Lt. Col. Max Velte] knew that Mohammed's live stock skills were essential for the work his Agribusiness Development Team, which is helping to improve the local economy by providing agricultural support, including free veterinarian clinics which offer vaccinations and medicine for farm animals. [...] Now, he works at U.S.-run clinics off the base several times a month.
Big deal. I bet he's really unpopular, cranky, and worthless.
Mohammed works as a translator when needed, and he is prized for his good humor, animal skills and understanding of American culture.
****
All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.
Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.
If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.
Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.
Aides to Sen. Scott Brown (R) says he intends to vote with Democrats on the Reid jobs bill.
This is a procedural vote, known as cloture, which moves the legislation to the next stage. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to attract some Republican support to reach the 60-vote threshold. Not only did Democrats lose their supermajority, but Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) is undergoing cancer treatment and will not be present to vote.
Democrats have yet to secure any Republican support for a $15 billion jobs bill, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday.
“I don’t think anyone has committed to voting for the package, but there are a number of people who say they are interested in looking at it,” said Schumer, the third-ranking member of Senate Democratic leadership.
Hey America! The GOP doesn't care about you! At all. Pass it on.
Sometimes it's so darned difficult to grasp facts. Even obvious ones that show up in reports and charts and stuff. The Rushpublics remind us of that daily.
“Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs [...] The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.”
The economy also expanded at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 5.7 percent last quarter, much of which can be attributed to the stimulus package.
If that was too complicated for the GOP, they can go back and take another peek at the pretty picture above.
"If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months." -- Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), in an interview with CBS News, giving one more gift to Republicans.
See? Now that he's out, he can do the damage he's always dreamed of. Quite a step up.
So he couldn't get tough with the GOP on the health care bill? I'd love to have seen him get the Rushpublics riled up sometime... last.... spring. Heaven knows they've gotten us riled up non-stop for a year now:
Reid announced Thursday that he would cut drastically back on the jobs bill Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced only hours earlier, essentially overruling the powerful chairman.
Ding!
The Democratic leadership aide disputed the notion that Reid had yanked the rug out from under Baucus, noting that Reid has decided to keep the four core provisions of Baucus’s legislation.
The aide said Reid decided to simplify the legislation to “short-circuit potential criticism from one side or the other,” referring to potential Democratic and Republican critics.
Reid’s bill also does not extend unemployment and COBRA benefits that many in both parties want; an aide to the majority leader said those extensions would be handled in a separate bill.
The reality is that right now the military-industrial complex is the government's biggest jobs program, starting with those "volunteer" GIs who join because they can't otherwise find a job. If the military didn't make wars to fight, and we needed a smaller size service, the government would have to deal with a higher unemployment rate at home. [...]
War and the military are our key domestic jobs programs at this point in time.
And they are going to drive us into bankruptcy: morally and economically.
Plus home prices remained unchanged, holding onto five months of gains. Looking up.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence improved more than expected in December, hitting a three-month high as job market pessimism eased and consumers' expectations reached a two-year high, according to a private report released on Tuesday. The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes rose to 52.9 in December from a revised 50.6 in November.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Sunday fired back at Republicans who claim the recent drop in unemployment is not enough to prove Democrats are handling the economy effectively.
In a pair of tweets to followers this afternoon, McCaskill remarked:
December of last year we lost more than 600,000 jobs. November this year we lost 11,000. Good news. Progress. Still work to do.
So weird when politics turns good news into cynical disappointment.
Of course, referring to the job numbers as any kind of "improvement" whatsoever would be an admission of defeat in their sick beady little eyes... just as passing a decent health care reform bill would.
To the Rushpublics, "America first" is code for "screw ordinary citizens, we're power hungry money-grubbers". Higher employment numbers and healthy Americans make them look like the self-serving failures that they are.
.jpg)