In trying to make the case that losing 4 million jobs since Obama took office is better than losing 9 million jobs if he had not got a stimulus bill passed, people accuse me of claiming that it is good to have lost 4 million jobs. The following explanation is how I try to emphasize that I am making no such claim.

As a parent and now a grandparent I am familiar with the long car trips with the constant question ‘Are we there yet?’

In this case the question has to do with reaching the goal of complete recovery from the recession.

No, we aren’t there yet, but we are getting closer. We are on the right road. If we turn back now, we will not get to where we want to go.

As a parent, I tried to be honest and never use the trick of saying, ‘It is just around the corner’. When it turns out not to be just around the corner, your credibility is destroyed and the trick won’t work again. It is better to say, No, we are not there yet, but we are on the right road and we will get there eventually. Look on the map to see how far we came from home and how close we are to the destination.

President Obama has this same realization. That is why he won’t pretend that the problem is solved. He just keeps explaining that we are on the right path and we will get there eventually.

He is trying to prevent people from giving up just as we are approaching sight of the destination. As soon as the destination is in sight, people’s excitement for continuing the journey will take over. Then it will not require much effort to keep them going forward on the road to success.

Follow this link to the article in the Worcester T & G by Ryan J. Donmoyer of Bloomberg News.

In 2007, the last year the economy was expanding in the U.S., the average income of the 400 highest-earning households rose 31% to $345 million, fueled by capital gains and dividends.  The data, the latest available, may provide ammunition for Democrats aiming to increase the capital gains tax rate; each household paid an average rate of 16.6% – the lowest since the Internal Revenue Service started tracking data in 1992.

Given the set of articles published in the Worcester T & G this Sunday, I can only surmise that there has been a palace coup in the editorial offices of the newspaper.  To see so much information in this newspaper supporting the Democratic agenda has left me gasping for breath.

Follow this link to the column by Dianne Williamson in the Worcester T & G.

Up until this point, I have been at a complete loss for words as to what could be said about Tiger Woods problems.

Diane Williamson has done a beautiful job of finding the words.  She has written the speech that Tiger wanted to give.

To call a man a sex addict is like saying that frogs are addicted to hopping.
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Maybe someday I’ll be forgiven. Maybe someday, when the media turns its attention to the next celebrity cheating scandal, I can jet off to Vegas and look up that babe with the enormous knockers. When all this nonsense dies down, I fully expect to hop into bed with the first bimbo who catches my eye. Please accept my apology in advance.

Follow this link to the article by Elaine Thompson of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette staff.

The article is loaded with facts and figures about the jobs that have been created or saved in Massachusetts.  There is even detail by city and town in the area surrounding Worcester.

Our recently elected Senator Scott Brown was campaigning on the fact that the stimulus package did not create a single job.  This article proves just how absurd that claim was.

Imagine what might have happened if this article had been published before the election.  From my reading of letters to the editor and the newspaper’s on-line site, it looks like the majority of the voters believed Brown’s claim.

I’d like to believe that my constant haranguing of the paper on their web-site prompted them to rethink the service that they were providing to the community.  They even quoted one of the local economic experts that I have repeatedly suggested.  (They had already published an article by him in the past, so it was not like I was introducing them to someone they did not know.)

Whatever prompted the newspaper to commission this work and to publish it, they deserve heaps of praise for doing so.

Follow this link to the story about two schools in China whose internet addresses were involved in the attacks.

According to the Times, the victim companies’ servers were exploited by a flaw in Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)’s Internet Explorer browser.

It is reports like these that keep me from using Internet Explorer.

The above link points to a more detailed story on The New York Times web site.

Leading up to President Obama’s health care summit next week, we’re holding our biggest health care day of action ever—The Virtual March for Real Health Care Reform on February 24. Can you join the march today? Click here to sign up and we’ll send a fax to Sens. Kerry and Brown in your name: Click here to sign up for the Virtual March

Dear MoveOn member,

Next week could be our last big chance to push for real health care reform—and we need a massive show of support to make a major impression on lawmakers in Washington.

Here’s what’s happening: Thursday, President Obama is holding a bipartisan health care summit with Congress. With all of Washington and the news media focused on health care leading up to the summit, it’s a crucial opportunity to make clear that Americans want Congress to get health care done now.

So we’re organizing our biggest, movement-wide day of action for health care reform yet: a Virtual March for Real Health Care Reform on February 24th.

Together with progressive allies, we’re aiming to send a million messages to Congress demanding they stand up and finish health care reform. It’s going to be huge, historic, and fun.

Can you sign up today to join the Virtual March? It’s simple to sign up—and when you do, we’ll automatically send a fax in your name to Sens. Kerry and Brown. Click the link below—it’ll sign you up and send a fax in your name to your senators.

http://pol.moveon.org/virtualmarch10/

This is it. If you’ve never taken action on health care, now’s the time to jump in. And if you’ve taken action every time, we need you now more than ever.  To do this right, we need as many people as possible.

The March is shaping up to be huge. With allies from labor, progressive blogs, Health Care for America Now, and others, we’ll have the phones, fax machines, email inboxes, and Facebook walls of Congress flooded with messages of support for real reform.

And at the same time, hundreds of folks will also be marching through Washington, D.C. to Capitol Hill in honor of Melanie Shouse, a MoveOn Council leader in St. Louis who recently passed away from breast cancer—while still fighting her insurance company for coverage, and organizing tirelessly to pass real health care reform.¹ Together, we’ll send an unmistakable message to Congress.

Can you sign up today? Click here to join the Virtual March, and we’ll automatically send a fax to Sens. Kerry and Brown:

http://pol.moveon.org/virtualmarch10/

Thanks for all you do.

–Kat, Michael, Ilyse, Lenore, and the rest of the team

P.S. Can you also forward this email to five friends today? The more people involved in the Virtual March, the stronger the message to Washington that it’s time to finish health care reform—and finish it right.

Sources:

1. “March to the Finish Line for Melanie,” Health Care for America Now

http://melaniesmarch.com/

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PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. This email was sent to Steven Greenberg on February 19, 2010..

Here is the movie.

This is the supplement to the graph in my original post Road To Recovery.

Follow this link to the posting of the movie and related text on Organizing For America.

Follow this link to see the website that reports on Massachusetts’ use of the Recovery Act money.

At the web site, I found a summary:

Over 25,000 jobs have been saved or created in Massachusetts because of Governor Patrick’s use of federal stimulus funds, including:

* Teachers
* Firefighters
* Police officers
* Construction workers
* Community health care workers

Among other projects, the Governor has also invested:

* Over $430 million in stimulus highway funds obligated to 84 projects.
* Over $800 million for 120 projects repairing municipal wastewater systems.

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported:

The state’s Web site reported that about 1,389 full-time equivalent jobs were created and about 3,333 full-time equivalent jobs were retained as a result of the legislation.

I wonder which web site they were reading.