Category Archives: jobs

Even the AP Is Catching On

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They fact-checked President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech, and they found these things.

OBAMA: At this moment—with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry and booming energy production—we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth.

THE FACTS: Job growth has been…fueled in part by lower-paying jobs…which have replaced many higher-paying positions…. Part-time jobs also remain elevated: there are still 1.7 million fewer workers with full-time jobs than when the recession began in December 2007.

[F]aster hiring hasn’t pushed up wages much. They have been growing at a tepid pace of about 2% a year since the recession ended 5 1/2 years ago. That’s barely ahead of inflation and below the annual pace of about 3.5% to 4% that is typical of a fully healthy economy.

And

OBAMA: I am sending this Congress a bold new plan to lower the cost of community college—to zero.

THE FACTS: Zero for qualifying students; an estimated $60 billion over 10 years to the treasury.

And

OBAMA: Thanks to a growing economy, the recovery is touching more and more lives. Wages are finally starting to rise again. We know that more small-business owners plan to raise their employees’ pay than at any time since 2007.

THE FACTS: A survey of small businesses by the National Federation of Independent Business does show that a rising proportion plans to raise wages. But plans to raise pay aren’t the same as actually raising them.

Average hourly earnings rose just 1.7% in December from 12 months earlier, according to the Labor Department. That’s about half the rate that is typical of a healthy economy….

And on.

An Intolerance from Anti-Discrimination

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Atlanta Fire Department Chief Kelvin Cochran has been fired from the Department altogether by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. Cochran’s reprehensible crime? He wrote a book, Who Told You That You Were Naked?, about morality from the Bible’s perspective. He also wrote about his views of homosexuality as informed by the Bible.

Reed suspended Cochran for a month over that book, and then on the day Cochran was to return to duty, Reed fired him. Reed said he did it because

I profoundly disagree with and am deeply disturbed by the sentiments expressed in the paperback regarding the LGBT community. I will not tolerate discrimination of any kind within my administration.

And yet, Reed is committing exactly that bit of miscreancy. He’s discriminating against a Christian man for his Christian beliefs. Reed’s willingness to be tolerant, and his claim to be anti-discrimination, are to be extended only to those who agree with him. To those who don’t think like he does, he gives the back of his hand, and he tells them to hit the bricks.

This is a textbook example of what the Bible is describing when it talks about hypocrisy.

Keystone and Vetoes

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All the pundits are looking to the Senate for an override of President Barack Obama’s pending veto of the pending Keystone XL Pipeline legislation. The Senate, it seems, has 63 votes for passage (which implies a cloture vote won’t be a problem), but the focus is on the Senate’s lack of four more votes to produce a “veto-proof” bill.

All the pundits are skipping over two key factors.

One is that a Senate passage with 67 Senators voting “aye” is not at all veto proof. That’s just for passage. The veto override is an entirely separate vote that comes after the President has, in fact, said “No” to his Senators and to the legislation. To override in the Senate, all 13 Senators voting for passage would then have to vote against their president to override. Every single one of them.

Also lost in the “veto-proof” blather, though, is a larger hurdle. Obama’s “No” would have to be overridden in the House, too: 290 Representatives would have to vote to override. That means that 44 of Nancy Pelosi’s (D, CA) Democrats would have to vote to override their President.

Good luck with that. Good luck with either of those.

Pass the bill, anyway, with a roll call vote in each House. Then do roll call votes in each House to override. Use Obama’s veto and those Democrats’ votes to shape the ’16 elections.

The Congress and the President

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President Barack Obama is ready, willing—even eager—to work with the 114th Congress, instead of routinely bypassing it, The Wall Street Journal quoted “senior administration officials” as saying at the start of this new year.

Both Houses of this new Congress have introduced bipartisanly supported bills that would authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. And Obama has said he’ll veto that legislation, never minding that 70% of Americans—Obama’s employers, as well as the employers of the new Congress—want the pipeline built.

I’m driven to the conclusion that Obama’s claimed willingness to work with Republicans is just more Obamatalk, and that “cooperate with” still means “be reasonable: do it my way.”

At Last, Shovel Ready Jobs

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And President Barack Obama only had to break the law (and the Constitution) to find them.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency is looking to hire 1,000 new employees to process applications pertaining to President Barack Obama’s new executive action on immigration, the New York Times is reporting.

Never mind that existing immigration law makes his Executive “Action” mandating protection from deportation of illegal entrants into the US illegal. Never mind that his Constitutional mandate, and his oath of office to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, make his Executive “Action” illegal.

Because, jobs. And best of all,

The new positions have salaries that range up to $157,000 a year.

That’s better than road building—and they’re indoors, too. Can’t beat that with a…stick.