- The Army says 16% of soldiers are not fit for duty. But at least they’re heteros! (USA Today)
- Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) will “temporarily” step down as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman during a “not so temporary” ethics investigation. (CNN)
- Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) has generously decided to let unemployed people collect insurance, probably because he doesn’t want to miss any of March Madness. (Atlantic)
- Oh hey, a couple people who do not believe in science will no longer be on the Texas Board of Education. (Dallas Morning News)
- Here are some hottt pics of today’s first day of same-sex marriage in DC. Also, Eleanor Holmes Norton! (WaPo)
Archive for posts ‘unemployment’
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Quote of the Day
Can I say that 20 million Americans unemployed, the fact that we’re worrying about the status of the White House social secretary…
—Economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, appearing on ABC’s This Week, trying to make sense of the nonsensical.
Wanker of the Day
- President Obama condemned Uganda’s “death penalty for homosexuals” law at a prayer breakfast organized by the American “Christian” group which supported the law. (AFP)
- Your U.S. Senate will vote on a jobs bill next week, but it will probably die along with all other legislation in the Senate. (USA Today)
- The GOP is soliciting campaign contributions from Wall Street, apparently not recognizing that “Wall Street” is a synonym for all of America’s least favorite people. (WSJ)
- Public funding for healthcare hit record levels this year and will soon exceed 50% of all healthcare spending in the US as more and more people can’t afford their health insurance and turn to Medicaid. If only someone had introduced legislation to try and do something about this… (LA Times)
- HOLY CRAP! SHARK ATTACK! (MSNBC)
Hey, Hey, LBJ! How Many Kids Did You Make Cry Today?*
- Universally hated insurance giant AIG is making a profit again! Huzzah! (Kansas City Star/Bloomberg)
- Everyone thinks Lyndon Johnson was a great guy, what with the whole “Civil Rights Act” business, but he was actually a jerk to his daughter, whose only desire in life was to see the Beatles, live, at the White House. (CNN Political Ticker)
- It shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point that the woman who claimed to be “just a mom” when she accosted Rep. Steve Kagen (D-WI) yesterday is actually a long-time Republican operative. (NBC26 via Think Progress)
- The GOP is very disappointed that the unemployment rate has dropped because it messes up their ad campaign. (MSNBC First Read)
* Cf.
Providing Unemployment Benefits is Basically Communism Anyway
- Your federal government offered Mississippi and Alabama some stimulus money to help them pay unemployment benefits to people who’ve lost their jobs, but both states said “No thanks, comrade” and are now proudly out of money and can’t pay unemployment benefits. (Wall Street Journal)
- The NRA does not care for Sonia Sotomayor because she would not allow New Yorkers to carry nunchucks, leaving them defenseless against the daily hordes of bridge-and-tunnel ninjas. (Washington Times)
- Your South Carolina leglisature will not impeach Governor-for-Life Mark Sanford because they don’t consider his skipping out on the state/country for five days without telling anyone to be “serious misconduct in office.” (CNN)
- The House Judiciary Committee interviewed Karl Rove yesterday about some crime he probably committed while George Bush was president, but shhhh!, don’t tell anyoen about it. These are secret interviews. (New York Times)
Fired Workers Occupy Factory
We could be seeing a lot more of this:
Laid off workers were camped out at their abruptly shuttered factory on Saturday, demanding that the bank which cut off credit to the Chicago window maker free up some financing so they could be paid their final wages and benefits.
The sit-in began on Friday morning, just hours after the Labor Department reported that a stunning retrenchment cut 533,000 jobs from US payrolls in November, sending the nation’s unemployment rate to a 15-year high.
…
Company officials told the plant’s union that they were being forced to close because their main lender, Bank of America, had withdrawn their financing.Federal law mandates that workers get paid for unused vacation time and are either given 60 days notice of a mass layoff or paid for that time.But company officials said they could not make those payments because the bank was “basically controlling all expenditures at this point… and was not allowing it,” said United Electrical union representative Leah Fried.
“There’s a whole other level of shamefulness given the bailout (of financial institutions) and that Bank of America didn’t extend credit as they were supposed to,” Fried told AFP.
Alberto Gonzales Can’t Get a Job
Poor, poor Alberto Gonzales. Looks like our illustrious ex-AG is having trouble finding work.
Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.
He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.
Of course, they also don’t typically resign in disgrace amid accusations of perjury, they aren’t typically under investigation by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, and their friends don’t typically set up a legal defense fund for them before they’ve been formally charged with anything. But hey, what do I know? I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons why nobody wants to hire Abu G.
The greatest impediment to Mr. Gonzales’s being offered the kind of high-salary job being snagged these days by lesser Justice Department officials, many lawyers agree, is his performance during his last few months in office. In that period, he was openly criticized by lawmakers for being untruthful in his sworn testimony. His conduct is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department, which could recommend actions from exonerating him to recommending criminal charges. Friends set up a fund to help pay his legal bills.
Oh nevermind, I guess it is that whole perjury investigation thing. Fortunately, my school and others have been keeping him out of the unemployment line:
While he has not taken any full-time job, friends said he was probably receiving as much income from speaking engagements as he did as attorney general with its annual salary of more than $191,000. Places like Washington University in St. Louis, Ohio State University and the University of Florida have paid him about $30,000 plus expenses for appearances, and the business groups pay a bit more, said sources at the schools and elsewhere who are familiar with the arrangements. Pomona College debated inviting him and decided he was not worth the money, the college newspaper reported.
Even though his speech “was not profound,” as our student government president wrote, Gonzales will never have to worry about money. I wish I could say the same for the hard-working Americans who lost their homes to subprime mortgage foreclosures or the increasing number of unemployed Americans who can’t get paid to run their mouths.
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