Follow this link to this startling story.

Now I finally understand why people are upset over the concept of a corporation being treated as if it were a person

Follow this link to the report in the Washington Post about the latest job numbers just released by the US Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I love the way the media can always find some way to emphasize the bad news among the good.

However, only 162,000 new jobs were created on non-farm payrolls, well below what economists were expecting. Most forecasters were expecting about 200,000 new jobs to be created last month, and the shortfall underlines the wobbly nature of this recovery.

Later the article goes on to say:

Forecasters expected a bump of 100,000 census hires in March. But only 48,000 were hired.

So 50,000 fewer census hires were made than expected.  This difference far more than accounts for the shortfall in hiring from what most forecasters were expecting.  In other words, there was much more private hiring and much less government hiring than expected.  Why did the author of the article choose to highlight the negative in the report?

Forecasters expected the rate to remain unchanged at 9.7 percent. On Thursday, the number of new jobless claims filed last week dipped slightly, down 6,000 to 439,000. It’s tough for this economy to start creating a meaningful number of new jobs until the weekly new jobless claims number gets down into the low 400s and stays there.

I guess 439,000 must not be in the low 400s.  What is the low 400s? Would 425 be the low 400s? If this rate of decline were to continue (and not accelerate) it would take only 3 months to reach the low 400s.

Feel free to read the article and see if you can find any more examples.  Do journalists feel that they have to find the negative in any situation so they can maintain their street cred? Would they feel like they were bowing to the man if they just slanted the article to the positive and merely mentioned, in passing,  some of the negatives in the numbers? They seem to focus on the negative and just mention, in passing, some of the possible positive interpretations.

Reporting on the same data, the Reuters article, US STOCKS-Futures rise on stronger March jobs data, said:

U.S. stock index futures rose slightly on Friday after the government said nonfarm payrolls increased by 162,000 in March, pointing to potential gains when stock trading resumes next week.

I guess the stock market was able to see the balance between the good and the bad in the statistics.

Follow this link to the article from the McClatchy newspapers.

I am sure that some of this history will be coming to a talk show or letter to the editor near you. This article gives the counter-argument to the rewritten history.

I don’t purport to vouch for the accuracy of either side of this article, but it does give you a place to start if you need to find authenticated facts about history.

Certain items like the history of the depression and the times when certain things occurred can easily be verified when you have to.

Follow this link if you cannot see the above video.

Follow this link to YouTube if you don’t see the above video

In listening to the suggestions by the Tea Partiers and Republicans that there should be a violent overthrow of the government, I thought There oughta be a law..

Well, there is something called the Smith Act. I found this at answers.com.

The Smith Act was a product of America’s prewar anxieties. Proposed by Representative Howard W. Smith of Virginia, the measure was one of several antisubversive bills introduced in Congress during 1939. A modified version was adopted by both houses on 22 June 1940, as Title I of the Alien Registration Act.

Section I provided a fine of up to ten thousand dollars and ten years in prison for attempting to undermine the morale of the armed forces. Sections II and III provided the same penalties for anyone who “advocates, abets, advises, or teaches” the violent overthrow of the government; publishes or distributes printed matter that advocates the violent overthrow; organizes any society with such a purpose; knowingly joins such a society; or conspires to do any of the above.

The Smith Act was initially invoked in 1941 against eighteen members of the Socialist Workers party in Minnesota but was rarely used during World War II. After the war, it became a primary weapon in the government’s war on domestic communists. In 1948 the Justice Department brought charges against twelve members of the Communist party’s Central Committee, and after the Supreme Court upheld those convictions and affirmed the validity of the act in Dennis v. United States (1951), indictments were secured against state party leaders throughout the country. In all, 141 persons were indicted for violating the Smith Act, but, because of the more liberal standards applied by the Court in Yates v. United States (1957) and Scales v. United States (1961), only twenty-nine of those indicted served jail terms.

Follow this link to the Newsweek piece by Jon Meacham.

He highlights a suggestion for President Obama that he elicited in an interview with former President Bill Clinton.

There are objective reasons that huge numbers of Americans are confused, angry, frustrated, and afraid, said Clinton. In that environment, the proper response is relentless explanation. …

relentless explanation puts into a neat phrase the exact thing that I have felt the Democratic party and its candidates have needed for years. There are some nuances that are worth reading about in the article.

I was dancing around this idea in my previous post Fight Fear With Positive Vision.

The Newsweek article sums up the advice thusly:

But his life and the life of the nation would be a good bit easier in the coming years if he undertook the unpopular armed with the lessons of his first great battle, over health care. First, explain relentlessly. Second, tell us how what you are explaining will lead us to a better place, and describe that place. Assume nothing; repeat yourself until you are numb. Only then will the message begin to sink in. It is a curious irony that Obama has been hobbled by a failure to communicate, but he has. The good news is, as Bill Clinton can tell you, there’s always tomorrow.

With any luck the Supreme Court might come through for Mr. Boehner. That’s bad luck for us.