U.S. Economy Autopsy Results.

Can I interrupt your 24/7 Michael Jackson Media Frenzy and Autopsy Derby for some real (bad) news?

From the New York Times:

The pace of job losses quickened in June after slowing just a month earlier, casting a shadow over the Obama administration’s attempts to stanch months of declines in the labor market.

The American economy shed 467,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent from 9.4 percent, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. Job losses were widespread among the construction, manufacturing, and business and professional services sectors.

The losses were sharply higher than economists’ expectations of 365,000 lost jobs.

Economists said a decline of 322,000 jobs in May had raised expectations that the market was bottoming out as the economy struggled to right itself, but the numbers on Friday dashed some of those hopes.

The figures also raised questions about whether the Obama administration, which has already passed a $787 billion stimulus plan, needed to step in again to shore up the American worker.

“The stimulus has probably stabilized income, but it has not moved the economy forward,” said John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corporation. “It’s a finger in the dike. But in terms of getting the economy going, there’s no evidence of that yet.”

But some economists noted that a decline of 467,000 jobs in a single month still represented an improvement from earlier this year, when 741,000 jobs vanished in January alone. And they said that the stimulus plan was only beginning to take effect.

“We have to wait to see where things go,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “If we didn’t have the stimulus, the economy would’ve contracted twice as fast in the second quarter and the job losses we’re suffering now would be very similar to the ones we were suffering at the beginning of the year,” Still, the latest figures, which were released a day early because of the Fourth of July holiday, highlight a somber new reality for workers, economists said.

As the recession enters its 20th month, wage growth is stagnating, working hours are dwindling and 14.7 million people are unemployed.

We now return to our regularly-scheduled program, One Week Later: The Thriller Is (Still) Gone.

Sarah Palin! Come On Down!

You're our next contestant on The Price is Right!

From the AP via HuffPo:

Alaska Gov. SarahPalin will sign bills accepting most of the federal stimulus funds available to the state, her spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Palin initially said she would accept only about two-thirds of the $930 million available to Alaska.

Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said the governor changed her mind after the public weighed in during legislative hearings prior to lawmakers passing bills to seek almost all of the funding.

Palin had warned about the state having to finance projects created by the stimulus funds after the federal money runs out. She earlier called the stimulus package "an unsustainable, debt-ridden package of funds."

Alaska's Legislature conducted more than 20 public hearings on the federal stimulus package, and legislative leaders said they couldn't find any of the strings attached to the funds that Palin had warned about.

They passed bills accepting nearly all the funds before the April 19 adjournment.

"I thank legislators for their work on the federal economic stimulus package and the public for participating in the process," Palin said Tuesday in a statement.

Unfortunately for the ethics-challenged moose shooter, none of the stimulus funds will be available to be used for her mounting personal legal woes, stacks of Bibles or for lipstick. 

That's Not Very Mavericky Of You, Guv.

     Since when do pitbulls run away from a fight?

     Maybe Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin couldn't find her lipstick.

     The distracted diva didn't end up meeting with Alaska legislators this week over her apparent refusal to accept nearly a third of federal economic stimulus funding for her state after all. Among the money's targeted beneficiaries: education, including dollars for special needs children. 

     Maybe she's not even in the state's capital.

     It's tough to attend meetings in Juneau while charging the state to work from your Wasilla home--800 miles away--isn't it, Guv?  

        

Alaska Education Takes The Bridge To Nowhere.

From Politico.com:

After comparing his bowling to the Special Olympics on "The Tonight Show" Thursday, President Obama called Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver to apologize before the program even aired. 

“He expressed his disappointment and he apologized, in a way that was very moving,” Shriver said on ABC's “Good Morning America.” “It’s important to see that words hurt, and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seen as humiliating or a put-down of people with special needs do cause pain, and they do result in stereotypes." 

Right on cue, Alaska's demagoguing dipshit Governor Sarah Palin pounced on President Obama's Special Olympics faux pas, and was far less forgiving: 

“I was shocked to learn of the comment made by President Obama about Special Olympics,” Governor Palin said.  “This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world...I hope President Obama’s comments do not reflect how he truly feels about the special needs community.” 

And I hope that Palin's fellow Alaskans are just as shocked as she claims to be when they realize what the almost $300 million in federal stimulus money that she refused in exchange  for her own political posturing will really cost them. According to the Anchorage Daily News, the biggest single chunk of that money is about $170 million for education, including money that would go for programs to help economically disadvantaged and special needs students.

Anchorage School Superintendent Carol Comeau said she is "shocked and very disappointed" that Palin would reject the schools money. She said it could be used for job preservation, teacher training, and helping kids who need it.

Obama may have made an unfortunate remark to Jay Leno that he'd love to take back, but his stimulus package provides much-needed education funding for Alaska's school children, which the L'il Maverick doesn't want. Should anybody be "shocked" that the Alaskan Disaster's actions speak much louder than chit-chat "Tonight Show" words?

UPDATE: Click here to learn more about the ethically-challenged Sarah Sideshow and her mounting legal bills.

L'il Maverick--the self-described "reformer"--has run up a ton of them "reformin'," and is looking at creating some kind of a fund to pay them off.

How about using proceeds from that book advance?

  

What A Lousy Day For Unemployed Louisianans; What An Excellent Day For An Exorcism.

GOP Confederates continue to turn down water while their houses are on fire.

From CNNPolitics.com:

In a budget proposal released Friday afternoon, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal indicated he is only rejecting $98 million of the federal stimulus funds due his state.

That figure is far less than the $700 million South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has indicated he may reject if the federal government does not allow Sanford to use that money to pay down his state's debt.

Jindal, an early GOP critic of the stimulus bill, is specifically rejecting funds aimed at expanding unemployment benefits on the belief his state would have to pick up the tab on the provision in two years.

In the budget proposal released Friday, Jindal emphasized the money he is accepting is temporary and a means to ultimately cutting spending.

"It is very important to understand…that federal stimulus funds are temporary funds. As such, they cannot be thought of as a permanent part of our state’s budget," he said Friday, adding, "Federal stimulus funds give us time to reform how the state runs so we can cut spending, ensure we are spending efficiently, and live within our means."

Perhaps Jindal would have accepted the money if it was for exorcisms instead of for his state's unemployed.

Pee For Texas.

The governor of Texas believes in trickle-down economics; he just peed all over the Lone Star's unemployed. 

From the AP:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has rejected $555 million in federal stimulus money that would expand state unemployment benefits.

Perry, an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus bill, accepted most of the roughly $17 billion slated for Texas in the plan.

But the governor turned down the unemployment benefits on Thursday because he says they would require the state to increase the tax burden on Texas businesses to fund an expanded program.

Hopefully Texas voters will return the favor when his time is nigh in 2010. 

I refer to the GOP as "Confederates." CSU/Sacramento Associate Professor of History Joseph A. Palermo must be reading JackRabbit Café, because he does, too.

Making A Political Point Vs. Making Ends Meet.

The New York Times reports that some GOP Confederate governor's plans to refuse stimulus money isn't sitting very well with the people who'd be hurt most by this partisan ploy:

As governors in nine states, mostly in the South, consider rejecting millions of dollars in federal stimulus money for increased unemployment insurance, there is growing anger among the ranks of the jobless in those states that they could be left out of a significant government benefit.   

The stimulus bill recently passed by Congress includes incentives to states to expand benefits to many more jobless people, including part-time workers and those who have cycled in and out of the work force, who are not covered in many states.

The Republican governors of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, along with Alaska and Idaho, have raised protests, saying that expansion could eventually require them to raise taxes.

On the fence is Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee. If he joins the GOP Confederacy on this, he might as well switch parties at the same time.

Read more about this fool's mission here. 

President Obama Gives Mitch McConnell & John Boehner A Ride Home.

From the AP: 

In a major victory for President Barack Obama, Democrats muscled a huge, $787 billion stimulus bill through Congress late Friday night in hopes of combating the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Republican opposition was nearly unanimous.

After lobbying energetically for the bill, Obama is expected to sign it within a few days, less than a month after taking office.

The New York Times reports that the president will sign the bill on Monday.

Supporters said the legislation would save or create 3.5 million jobs. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., conceded there was no guarantee, but he said that "millions and millions and millions of people will be helped, as they have lost their jobs and can't put food on the table of their families."

The Senate approved the measure 60-38 with three GOP moderates providing crucial support--the only members of their party to back it. Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio cast the decisive vote after flying aboard a government plane from Ohio, where he was mourning his mother's death.

The approval also capped an early period of accomplishment for the Democrats, who won control of the White House and expanded their majorities in Congress in last fall's elections.

Since taking office on Jan. 20, the president has signed legislation extending government-financed health care to millions of lower-income children who lack it, a bill that President George W. Bush twice vetoed. He also has placed his signature on a measure making it easier for workers to sue their employers for alleged job discrimination, effectively overturning a ruling by the Supreme Court's conservative majority.

GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania broke with their GOP brethren to support the bill.

Stimulus Package Heads To Senate For Passage; GOP Confederates Head For The Hills.

From CNN: 

In a 246 to 183 vote largely along party lines, the House of Representatives on Friday passed a $787.2 billion economic recovery package that was drawn up, amended and negotiated in record time.

No Republicans voted for the bill, while seven Democrats voted against it. When the House voted on its own version of a stimulus bill a few weeks ago, no Republicans voted for that measure and 11 Democrats had also voted against it.

The Senate is expected to vote on the measure Friday evening. It, too, is expected to pass the bill, but with no more than three Republicans supporting it.

President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law soon.

"The goal at the heart of this plan is to create jobs. Not just any jobs, but jobs doing the work America needs done: repairing our infrastructure, modernizing our schools and hospitals, and promoting the clean, alternative energy sources that will help us finally declare independence from foreign oil," President Obama said Friday morning.

The Obama economic team estimates the stimulus plan will create or save between 3 million and 4 million jobs.

Click here for the Washington Post's take on things.

Click here for a spoiled Confederate whine: