Unemployment drops below 10% for the first time in four months, but economists are still nervous.
Scott Brown is seated a week early, pissing Patrick Kennedy right off. I’ll let him say it for himself;
“Seven out of ten of Brown’s voters were labor households and he stressed that he was independent. And while he was originally scheduled to be sworn in next week, they moved it up to today so he could cast his first vote, the most anti-labor, the most anti-what his constituents thought they were voting for when they voted for him.”
Brown is claiming the statement to be nothing more then partisan politics, and of course there’s validity to that. Two months ago any Democrat taking pot shots at Brown would be looked at as bullying a small timer with no chance. Now, Scott Brown is enemy number one (I bet Joe Lieberman was overjoyed he got elected). These seating’s are a big deal, people. Right now they operate on a two man panel, when five are needed to keep up the bi-laws. Anyone working in labor should be terrified right now, and with the rights history of being anti union, people should remember what jobs went away in the recession. These seating’s could be a litmus test of where Brown stands, and if he has any intention of keeping obligations to his base in Massachusetts. If the party of No goes ahead as it has, NOTHING is going to change, and right now, we need a lot of change.
In other party line bickering, after a month of work Richard Shelby won’t go along on financial overhaul. The big threat possibly keeping the bill stalled? A new consumer advocacy branch. No details yet on what it will cost or how far it would reach.
More on Richard Shelby- He’s blocking 70 of President Obama’s nominations. 70. 70 positions that need filling. Why, you ask? Over $40 Billion dollars in earmarks the White House doesn’t want to sign off on. When Ben Nelson did the same thing, but with health care reform, even NPR is on the guy. My mistake, though. The GOP is the little guy, so playing politics is what they have to do to compete.
The next person to blame on health care? President Obama, via David Axlerod. Al Franken, both in public and in private, has blasted White House leadership for urging them to finish health care, then giving no direction as to how.
The National Tea Party Convention was held last night, to a crowd of some 600 (who paid $549 each, making some $329,000!), and I heard a fun fact. Tom Tancredo says Obama could not have won without illiterates voting for him. Lets do the math on this. I know lots of conservatives are big on issuing a civics test before allowing people to vote. Same thing as the Voter ID card, which has always cracked me up how the conservative party is by it’s nature cautious of anyone getting information about them, but very for another ID card. I personally could go either way on it. I don’t mind a civics test before i vote. If i had to get a card, I of course would. It would just be one more thing to do when I’m registering voters, which I do a lot.
After reading the statement’s made, the implications of Tancredo are three fold; first, there is an illiteracy problem. Second, there is in immigration problem. Third, these two factors are what got Obama in office. So take that retroactively. Eight of the top ten states with the most immigration Voted McCain, , and six of those states are in the top ten for illiteracy. That said, the states with the highest immigrant populations, only four voted McCain. This is interesting to look at, because while the south does not have the highest population of immigrants, it does have the highest percentage, and they dominate illiteracy. What this means is yes, there is a strong chance that an illiterate person can vote for Obama, but by percentage of the state, he was more likely to vote McCain.
