Headlines - Friday July 22

 

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Via Matt Stoller, here's one for the books.

 

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Paul Krugman has the goods, in a simple chart that says it all. This is one of the broadest, and perhaps the truest, measures of unemployment, the Employment-to-Population Ratio. Here's the latest:

Krugman adds:

[W]e've been basically flat on the employment front since late 2009, with nothing suggesting a sustained break back toward better performance[.]

Like a bouncing ball that flutters till it dies on the floor. This is what it looks like when stimulus money runs out and nothing triggers new demand. This is what it looks like when frightened job-holders try to pay down that massive household debt overhang with failing and uncertain incomes.

But wait, it could get worse. Watch when Obama's eager austerity kicks in. Think that will change the 2012 election dynamic just a tad?

Me too.

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Does anyone else remember the good old days when wingnuts were just pissed off about Rachel Ray's scarves and not actively trying to wreck the country's finances?

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Married for only two months, Britta Palin sets new Track record by appearing seven months pregnant.

 

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Hot Enough for You Guys on the Right?

I ask that question because last winter, when it was snowing to beat the band, I found no shortage of conservative bloggers chortling, in essence: "It's snowing again! Take that, AlGore!"

But they seem to have all fallen silent in the last couple of weeks.

The "dangerous" heat wave baking the central United States is expected to extend its reach eastward in the coming week, and ultimately cover most of the eastern part of the country, the National Weather Service said Monday.

Maybe we should ask Dubya II Rick Perry:

A record drought is forcing Texas cattle ranchers to send their cows to slaughter because it's too costly to keep buying feed for herds finding little forage in parched pastures.

They'll probably now say that "the weather of a few days or a month doesn't prove that global warming is real." Yet they were more than willing to say that one or two snowstorms proved otherwise.

 

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When Harry Reid has to tell the White House to buck up and stay strong, we're in Bizzaro Land.

 

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Rick Scott Busy Sexing Floridians With Robocalls And Ethics Violations

 

Oh, don't we just love to pick on hairless dingus Rick Scott, because he is officially America's most disliked governor, his constituents are constantly suing him for passing laws no one likes, he's kind of "eh" about keeping track of his filings to the Ethics Commission, and he's using state money to sexually harass Florida ears with creepy unsolicited robocalls talking about his accomplishments. That is sort of an "accomplishment" we guess, inventing the most annoying way on Earth of trying to reach constituents: calling them at home during dinner to deliver a taped lecture about all the laws he is passing to make their lives worse. READ MORE »

 

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In the era of massive belt-tightening budget cuts, the story of two never-completed, unused Navy ships now being sent to the scrap heap after costing U.S. taxpayers $300 million is a case study in Pentagon waste

 

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Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? ~Ernest Gaines

 

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Limbaugh's irresponsible rhetoric endangers the lives of his listeners. He mocks the heat index as some sort of government scam, and dismisses this year's killer heatwave as no big whoop, it gets hot in the summer, this happens every year. Except it doesn't happen every year. This summer follows a winter and spring that saw record precipitation that saturated the ground and caused severe flooding in the northern half of the country. The saturated ground is now causing severe humidity, and humidity impedes the bodies natural ability to cool itself by sweating and evaporation, and if we can't cool ourselves, our bodies are subject to heat stroke. And that is why his rhetoric is dangerous, especially to the aging demographic that makes up the bulk of his audience.

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What If We Had a GOP Prez, and Dems Holding The Debt Ceiling Hostage? 

 

MY FRIENDS, GIVEN THE MORTAL THREAT POSED BY THE DEMOCRAT PARTY TO THE VERY ECONOMIC AND NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES, I'VE CONTACTED MY OLD FRIENDS IN VIETNAM, AND MADE A DEAL TO SHIP THESE UNPATRIOTIC TRAITORS TO A RE-OPENED HANOI HILTON."

 

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Mario:

I had never heard of this singer/songwriter until I came across a post on C&L which featured a song she sang at the closing keynote session of Netroots Nation – 'They Say They Want Our America Back'. Loved it. At a time of Tea Party madness, new waves of xenophobic hate directed toward Muslims, immigrants and gays along with the irrational fear brought on by having a black man in the White House, anything which pokes fun at the crazies and bigots while putting a smile on one's face is welcome.