Jobs

Dear Friends,

The jobs report for June came out earlier this month.  Here is the first paragraph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics online report (here):

Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 125,000 in June, and the
unemployment rate edged down to 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported today. The decline in payroll employment reflected 
a decrease (-225,000) in the number of temporary employees working on 
Census 2010. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 83,000.

Here are some additional facts from that report.

There are 14.6 million people unemployed.
There are 6.8 million people who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more.
There are 8.6 million people who are involuntarily working part time instead of full time.

Here is some analysis from an article in The New York Times on July 2 (here):

The 83,000 private sector jobs created in June more than doubled the count in May. In the first six months of 2009, the nation lost 3.7 million private sector jobs; during the first six months of this year it gained 590,000. Manufacturing continued a modest revival, as plants added 9,000 jobs, bringing the total for such jobs to 136,000 since January (manufacturing shed two million jobs early in this recession). Amusement, gambling and recreation businesses added 28,000.

The economy needs to add about 130,000 jobs a month to keep up with population growth.  The official numbers that are most reported understate the unemployment problem, because of those that are forced to work part time and those that are discouraged and not actively looking.

It is critical to our economic recovery that we have significant job growth.  It is job growth that triggers demand which triggers economic activity.  The government can stimulate job growth with infrastructure improvement funding which is much needed in our country.  In the short term, the government can relieve suffering and stimulate the economy by extending the unemployment benefits.

The increase in government spending for infrastructure improvements and unemployment benefits would improve our infrastructure, provide needed relief to those who have lost their jobs, provide a much need stimulus to the economy and provide more jobs.  It is the right thing to do.

So why have I not seen President Obama out on the trail explaining these facts to the American people and pushing back at the Republicans who are against anything that he proposes and the conservative Democrats who have become overly obsessed with the deficit?  The deficit is terrible, but we need jobs right now, and we will need to see an increase in the deficit to get the economy going before we deal with the deficit.

The polls may show that the Republicans have been successful at scaring the American people about the deficit.  The job of a leader is to educate, inform and convince the people of the course of action that the leader believes in.  President Obama has the skills to do that if he wants to lead us out of this recession and back to a time of low unemployment and a high rate of job growth.  I trust he wants to do the right thing.  I hope that I see him out in front leading instead of worrying about the Republicans.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Immigration

Dear Friends,

President Obama has recently renewed his push for immigration reform.  On Tuesday, the Justice Department filed a suit to stop the Arizona Immigration law.  Here is a link to the article in The New York Times.

What could be of more importance in the long term is that President Obama met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and indicated that he wanted to get an immigration reform bill passed this year, perhaps in the lame duck session after the November elections.  Here is a link to an article in the Los Angeles Times which ends with the following paragraph:

Deepak Bhargava of the Washington-based Center for Community Change was among those who met with the president Monday. In an interview afterward, Bhargava said Obama "was unambiguous about his commitment. The question is whether the actions will match the words over the next few weeks."

Let's hope that President Obama follows through with both words educating the American people about the need for a fair immigration policy and actions that result in the passage of a bill that is not based on fear of "others" which is what seems to play with the Republicans/Tea Party members.  America is a better country and Americans are better people than to base policy on fear of "others" or the fact that soon whites will no longer represent the majority in this country.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hope and Change

Dear Friends,

My wife and I have been watching the West Wing television program.  We have the DVDs.  We love the program.  They just don't make programs like the West Wing anymore.  Whenever I watch the West Wing, I think of two things.  The first is that I wish that our country were run by President Bartlet and his staff.  We would need a new Vice President because Vice President Hoynes is not my idea of a great Vice President.  Other than changing the Vice President, I would keep the rest of the staff.   The other thing that I think is that I should be the President, but since I have never run for public office, I think that I should be the President's chief of staff.  For the right President I would be great.

One of the segments that we watched last night occurred about 14 months into President Bartlet's first term. They really had not been doing well and were not getting much done that showed what they really believed.  Suddenly two seats open up on the Federal Elections Commission.  President Bartlet's immediate reaction is to nominate two people that believe in campaign finance reform.  Everybody gets very excited, but it becomes clear that like all the other great ideas, the Administration will give in to the way it is always done.  The Republican and Democratic leadership decide who will be appointed.  The people are virtually always ones that do not want campaign reform.

At the same time Sam is sent to have a meeting on Don't Ask Don't Tell as if the Administration will do something about it.  Again it becomes obvious that the Administration will not do anything.  The staff is demoralized as they realize that they really aren't fighting for what they believe but are running to the middle and worrying about getting reelected.  Of course, the President's approval ratings are tanking.

Finally, the staff confronts Leo McGarry, the Chief of Staff, who then confronts the President.  After an emotional argument between President Bartlet and Leo McGarry about which of them has been running to the middle, they agree to fight for what is right instead of worrying about getting reelected.  They acknowledge that they will not win all the battles, but they will fight for what they believe in.

When Leo tells the staff, they are all fired up.  They nominate the two people who believe in campaign finance reform and go full speed on drug treatment instead of putting people in prison.  Of course because it is television, they conduct a poll which shows that President Bartlet's approval rating goes up nine points.

I am, of course, reminded of President Obama's slogan of Hope and Change.  But unfortunately he has made the same mistakes that President Bartlet did.  He worries about what the people in Congress think, and he doesn't fight the fights that need fighting.  At the end of the segment President Bartlet says "I can sell that."   There is a lot that President Obama could sell but doesn't even try or he tries once and then backs off.  He needs to fight the fights that need fighting.  He needs to go directly to that American people.  They are reasonable and are searching for leadership.  President Obama has a great gift in his ability to talk to people, reason with them and get them excited about the way things should and can be.  That is what Hope and Change is all about.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Guantanamo

Dear Friends,

The saga of the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay is a clear example of the problems that President Obama has.  Some of these problems are caused by Republican lies and fear mongering, but many are caused by President Obama's unwillingness to fight for what he promised as candidate Obama.

Here is an recent article from the Los Angeles Times.

Obama and Guantanamo: A chronology of his broken promise

July 2, 2010 |  2:02 am

Aug. 2, 2007: Sen. Barack Obama makes a simple promise he will often repeat to loud domestic -- and foreign -- applause during his $750 million presidential campaign:

As President, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists.

Jan. 22, 2009: With the official flourish of a newly-inaugurated president and a platoon of retired generals for a living backdrop, as one of his very first official Oval Office acts, Barack Obama signs an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility within one year:

This is me following through on not just a commitment I made during the campaign, but I think an understanding that dates back to our founding fathers, that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct, not just when it's easy, but also when it's hard.

Critics warn the complex closure cannot be accomplished by waving a magic wand. They say that other countries once so eager to denounce the Guantanamo prison are unlikely to be equally eager to accept accused terrorists from there. And that finding and rehabbing an alternative mainland incarceration facility for the remaining hardcore prisoners is expensive, duplicative, likely politically unpopular and virtually impossible to accomplish within the promised one year.
July 21, 2009: The White House grants its Guantanamo closing commission an extra six months to study the situation.
Dec. 16, 2009: President Obama signs a presidential memorandum ordering Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and Defense secretary Robert Gates to acquire the state prison in Thompson, Illinois as the $350 million replacement for Guantanamo.
Administration officials are forced to acknowledge the obvious, that closing the facility in Cuba will not occur in 2009 but will spill over into 2010, possibly even late 2010.
Jan. 22, 2010: The one year promise anniversary. No closing. No ceremony.
May 19, 2010: The House Armed Services Committee, controlled by members of....

...the president's own Democratic party, absolutely prohibits any opening of a Guantanamo detention replacement facility within these United States. To underline its ban, the powerful committee erupts in an unusual display of bipartisanship: The prohibition vote is unanimous.
June 25, 2010: In a Friday bad news dump guaranteed to attract minimal mid-summer attention, the N.Y. Times exclusively announces and excuses the broken Obama promise by blaming political opposition from unnamed parties (but you can guess which one) and citing the press of more important national priorities anyway:

Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantanamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013...
"...the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat....

Quoting an unidentified "senior administration official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking on a sensitive issue," the news organization says, "The president can't just wave a magic wand and say that Gitmo will be closed."
Friday, July 2, 2010: To commemorate the one-week anniversary of the Times' exculpation of Obama's oft-repeated campaign promise, The Ticket publishes a chronology of the Guantanamo detention facility's non-closing.
To be Continued, no doubt.
-- Andrew Malcolm

The most telling line in the article is the quote by Senator Levin, "the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see".  President Obama is not using his wonderful abilities to support actually doing what he promised to do.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Flag

Dear Friends,

I am still on my Fourth of July holiday.  We have a flag and a flagpole at our cabin, and from time to time we raise the flag with a lot of mixed feelings.

In officer candidate school in the Navy, I always enjoyed raising the flag.  One day the wind was very strong, but we were required to raise the large flag.  At one point all five of us putting the flag up were pulled off the ground by the flag sailing in the wind.  What a thrill although not as ceremonious as it was suppose to be.

In fact, I have always liked the flag.  Unfortunately, it has been stolen as a symbol of the right wing pseudo patriots. 

My father was a navigator/bombardier in the Army Air Corps (the Air Force before it became its own branch of the military) in WWII and flew many missions over Europe.  He lost most of his squadron and never talked about his military experience.  He won the Distinguished Flying Cross.  He was a patriot, a life long Republican (although I do not think he would like them much today, but probably couldn't vote for a Democrat either).  But he never flew the flag, and he never wore a flag lapel pin.  I guess his actions demonstrated that he was a patriot. 

I too was in the military during a time of war.  I was a navigator on an ammunition ship rearming the ships off of Vietnam.   Not as dangerous as what my father did, but in a combat zone nonetheless.

Right after 9/11 we flew a flag at our home for awhile until President Bush decided he would invade Iraq.  Then it was replaced with a "NO WAR IN IRAQ" sign.  A neighbor had both a flag and a "NO WAR IN IRAQ".  That was the best combination.

My wife and I went to Washington DC to attend a prayer service for peace at the National Cathedral followed by a candlelight march to the White House and a big march the next day from the Jefferson Memorial to the Pentagon all to protest the Iraq war.  The flag wavers were out in force as a counter protest.  Some of those protesters were war veterans and some were the appropriate age to serve in the military but were not.  I was wearing my Veterans for Peace hat and was repeated called a coward and unpatriotic by the flag wavers. 

It is hard for me not to associate the flag with those that have stolen it as a symbol of right wing pseudo patriotism.

You probably remember the big uproar because candidate Obama did not always wear a flag lapel pin.  For some people, it was more proof that he probably wasn't really an American and certainly was not patriotic enough to be President.  Apparently the true patriots are people like George W. Bush who was able to avoid really serving in the military by getting into a unit because he came from a rich and powerful family and people like Dick Cheney who had five deferments, because he had other priorities at the time. 

So today as I look out at the flag waving gracefully in the nice breeze, I am at once reminded of all that is great about the United States and all the flaws that we have as well.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Economy, Employment and Extended Benefits

Dear Friends,

As I am sure you all know, the United States Senate went on yet another break without passing the bill extending unemployment benefits for the more than 1.2 million people whose benefits have run out.  The Senate will not have another chance to pass this bill until July 12.  By that time the number of people whose benefits will have run out will be even higher. 

Paul Krugman wrote a great column in The New York Times this morning entitled "Punishing the Jobless" (here).  Mr. Krugman argues that the bill has been held up by "a coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused".  The heartless are the Republicans who will oppose anything that President Obama is in favor of and whose chances of retaking control of Congress are greatly increased if the economy remains sluggish and the jobless rate high.  The clueless are people like Sharon Angle the Republican/Tea Party candidate trying to unseat Senator Reid who believes,

You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but it doesn’t pay as much. We’ve put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry.

Then there are those that are confused and believe what Sharon Angle says.

But the critical part of Mr. Krugman's article is that jobless benefits are the most effective and fastest form of economic stimulus.  There can be no debate about that fact.  The Republicans and some Democrats use a concern about the deficit to argue against extending the benefits.  As Mr. Krugman points out, now is not the time to stop stimulating the economy to protect against a very small rise in the deficit.  We will need to address the deficit but right now we need to stimulate the economy.

The Republicans are using the filibuster to require 60 votes to pass this bill (and virtually every other bill).  In the last attempt, the two Republican Senators from Maine voted for cloture so that the vote could proceed and but for Senator Ben Nelson's (D-NE) negative vote, the bill would have passed.  Why would any Senate Democrat vote with the Republicans on this issue?  It is hard to say.  Here is Senator Nelson's statement after he voted to extend unemployment benefits in November 2008.  Here is Senator Nelson's statement about why is voting against this extension.  It is hard to discern exactly what he is saying but if I had to bet, he wants some special deal for Nebraska.  Based on his performance with the health care reform legislation, it is clear he loves special deals for Nebraska.

So a Senate Democrat is blocking an essential piece of legislation that is supported by his party at a time when his party controls the White House and both houses of Congress.  The Republicans would never allow this to happen, so why are President Obama and the Senate leadership permitting this to happen.  Senator Nelson needs to get in line or face a challenge from a candidate backed by the President and all the resources the Democrats can muster.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Declaration of Independence

Dear Friends,

Today is the Fourth of July.  We are celebrating the 234th anniversary of the publication of our Declaration of Independence.  It is an awesome document.  I read it again today (here).  The first amazing thing I noticed about the Declaration of Independence when I reread it, was that it was a unanimous declaration by the thirteen united States of America.  Do you think that there is anything that we could get the States to agree on, much less the members of Congress or the Governors or any group of people that is not selected solely on the basis of having the same point of view on a particular subject?

The Declaration starts by saying that if you are going to sever the political bands that have bound you for a period of time that you need to articulate why you are doing so.  That makes sense.  Wouldn't it be great if we forced our politicians to explain why they were taking the positions that they do and include in that explanation the facts that support their decisions?

The Declaration then sets forth the truths on which the new government is founded. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

What a great enumeration of basis truths! When I read them today, it was easy to forget that they perhaps really did mean "men" and not men and women and to forget that they really meant white men and perhaps even only those who owned property.  Just for the record, I am going to continue to forget those inconvenient facts and read "men" to mean all human kind.

If all of us would live our lives in accordance with those truths and if all our governmental and non-governmental institutions governed themselves by those truths, just think what a wonderful world this would be. 

I heard a wonderful statement the other day at a panel discussion of torture.  The woman said that if you have empathy, you cannot torture.  If you recognize that we are all created equal and we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, there would never be torture or many other heinous things that go on in the world today.  If our government is based on these truths, how can there be any debate about the use of torture, how can there be any debate about rendition, how can there be any debate about unlimited detention of people declared to be enemy combatants without charges, or evidence of wrongdoing or judicial review and how can there be any debate about the assassinations by our government of our citizens without due process of law?  President George W. Bush instituted these policies, and President Obama is continuing them.

So today, I am thinking about how I can live my life in a way that recognizes that all humans are created equal, and how I can live my life to be certain that all humans really do have an opportunity to pursue a life of liberty and happiness. 

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal