On Washington Journal Wednesday, Tom Coburn appeared to spend a few minutes smacking down the unemployed again.

COBURN: now that we're running $1.4 trillion deficits every year. it's high time we start paying for them. I understand. That's the problem with Washington. We're going to do it the way we've always done it. That's what's gotten us in severe financial difficulty and really mortgaged our future.

[Aside: No, Senator Coburn. Our future was mortgaged when we let the rich get big, big tax cuts with no pay-for. But continue on...]

HOST: If the Democrats continue to put forward legislation that doesn't cut programs to pay for unemployment benefits, and the unemployed do not get this -- these money in their pockets, some have said, Ezra Klein of the "Washington Post" said the unemployment numbers will continue to swell and that the problem really right now is not that these people refuse to look for work or settle for lesser-paying jobs, but just that for every one job, there's five people unemployed and that will continue to be the problem. And we're just going to leave them without incomes and job opportunities and money to end? That's making it harder for those economies to generate jobs? That's the -- --

COBURN: Well, all that is, is a strong-man argument. We're not saying don't do that. We're just saying it's important now, if you look at the scheme of things, that if we're going to do that now, we pay for it.

COBURN: I live with Congressman Heath Shuler. He told me yesterday he had a job fair in North Carolina. High unemployment. I was talking to Congressman Shuler, He worked hard to get every major company there. Filled the whole room. Had over 500 jobs available. Three people showed up. Three people showed up for 500 jobs in an area that had unemployment above 10%. His explanation is they are not going to do it until the benefits lessen.

So and that may not be an exact interpretation of what his words were.
But the fact is there was a negative aspect to continuing unemployment.

Gosh, only three people showed up? Only three people? Coburn goes on to claim that the jobless just aren't going to hunt for jobs when they're on the dole. Maybe the best part is how he segues from this sly bashing right into an argument for tax cuts for corporations and the rich to stimulate the economy, but I digress. Back to the job fair...

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Mandate Indeed

Geez. The way these conservatives talk, you'd think they won by 30 points instead of 3.

Even Bush himself has been telling the press that he has "the people at my back" (or is that backside?) -- in the process of making clear to everyone considering crossing those bridges they say they're building what the reality is: It's "my way or the highway."

But the entire press corps has bought into the myth of Bush's "mandate." Indeed, it's all any of them can seem to talk about.

Now, just as an experiment, I went back and checked, because I thought I remembered that Bill Clinton cleaned Bob Dole's clock in 1996 by a substanitally wider margin. Sure enough, the final figures were:

Bill Clinton 47,402,357 49%
Bob Dole 39,198,755 41%

Ross Perot 8,085,402 8%

In other words, Clinton won by a margin of of 8 percent of the popular vote -- 8.2 million.
Did the "liberal media" declare that Clinton had a clear mandate from the people?

Well, no.

The mainstream press instead proclaimed that Clinton had been given "a message, not a mandate".

Yep, it's grim trying to get by in the states that give decent unemployment benefits. Imagine if you lose your job, and have the bad luck to live in one of the states that pays a pittance. Meanwhile, the Republicans scream about the "nanny state" and "being on the dole," even mocking job retraining programs:

Fred Wright and Tyrone Gatson live about 55 miles apart and worked as technicians for poultry producer Pilgrim's Pride Corp. until they were laid off last month.

But Mr. Wright, who lives and worked in Arkansas, is eligible for nearly twice as much in unemployment benefits as Mr. Gatson, who lives in Louisiana and worked at a different Pilgrim's Pride plant in that state, just over the border from Mr. Wright. Under Arkansas's more generous system, Mr. Wright can get $431 in weekly benefits, compared to Mr. Gatson's $284. He is also eligible to receive benefits for three more months than Mr. Gatson.

The differences highlight the inequities of the U.S. unemployment-insurance system, a complex patchwork of government programs guided by Washington but administered principally by the states. [See interactive map here.]

Economists say jobless benefits soften the blow of recessions by offering laid-off workers money for necessities like food and housing while they seek new jobs. The programs also prop up consumer spending, reducing the spread of layoffs in hard-hit areas. As the recession drags on, more Americans are relying on unemployment checks -- 6.7 million in the week ended June 6 -- than at any time since the Department of Labor began collecting the data in 1967.

Unemployment benefits are financed by state and federal taxes on employers; in general, employers pay higher taxes as more of their former workers tap benefits. States set most of the rules based on their own fiscal and policy choices, creating a maze of regulations to determine who qualifies for jobless benefits, how much money they get, and for how long.

Some students of the system say the inconsistencies weaken the safety net and allow many women, low-wage earners and part-timers to slip through. "Too many states are very stingy about paying out adequate unemployment benefits," says Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project, a research and employee-advocacy group. "Sometimes there's no rhyme or reason to it."

That's a head-to-keyboard sentence if I've ever heard one. Pam's House Blend:

Good god. Perhaps all that work on Liddy has caused something to snap. Out of all the people to try to honor in an Act dedicated to fighting AIDS, Elizabeth Dole spits in the face of LGBTs by proposing the now-dead Jesse Helms be added to the "Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008." Here's the Congressional Record:

SA 5074. Mrs. DOLE submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill S. 2731, to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 to provide assistance to foreign countries to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: On page 1, line 5, strike ''and Henry J. Hyde'' and insert '', Henry J. Hyde, and Jesse Helms''.

Why is this so unbelievably wrong on so many levels? Because of what Jesse Helms said about AIDS:

Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God says it all: Jesse Helms, the man who in 1987 described AIDS prevention literature as "so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1988 vigorously opposed the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, saying, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1995 said (in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act) that the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."

I don't know about you, but I smell a Worst Person in The World award going to one Liddy Dole for this crushingly insensitive move.

Raw Story:

U.S. President George Bush told the NHL champion Carolina Hurricanes Friday he likes to be "around people that keep expectations low," according to a UPI report Friday.

"Bush congratulated the 2005-06 Stanley Cup winners at the White House, noting the team was ranked 28 out of 30 at the beginning of last season," UPI said.

"I like to be around people that keep expectations low," Bush said. "Instead of listening to the prognosticators, this team had a 112-point season. They had 52 wins. They win the Stanley Cup. They're here at the White House. Congratulations to you."

Also attending the ceremony were former North Carolina Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr and Rep. Howard Coble, who was said to be sporting a championship hat.

"I thought you might be wearing that to cover up your bald head," Bush quipped.

If you read the full transcripts (available here), Bush also revealed that the Stanley Cup could hold 14 cans of beer.

The Myth of America's 'Lawsuit Crisis'

By Stephanie Mencimer via AlterNet

Last December, Newsweek featured a cover package by Stuart Taylor and Evan Thomas that blared: "Lawsuit Hell: Doctors. Teachers. Coaches. Ministers. They all share a common fear: being sued on the job." Paired with a weeklong tie-in on NBC News and online chats on MSNBC.com, the article claimed that because "Americans will sue each other at the slightest provocation," the country is suffering from an "onslaught of litigation" that costs Americans $200 billion a year. The story was full of tales claiming to illustrate Americans' overarching sense of legal entitlement and desire to "win a jackpot from a system that allows sympathetic juries to award plaintiffs not just real damages…but millions more for the impoossible-to-measure 'pain and suffering' and highly arbitrary 'punitive damages.'"

Not only were the particulars of the Newsweek story misleading. The essence of the story was wrong, too. Newsweek's "onslaught" of lawsuits simply hasn't happened. According to the National Center for State Courts, a research group funded by state courts, personal injury and other tort filings, when controlled for population growth, have declined nationally by 8 percent since the 1975, and have been falling steadily in real numbers since 1996. The numbers are even more dramatic in places with rapid population growth, like Texas, where the rate of tort filings fell 37 percent between 1990 and 2000. Even in liberal California, the rate of filings has plummeted 45 percent over the past decade. And those overly sympathetic juries Newsweek derides as so eager to dole out big bucks to injured victims?

In 2001, they voted against plaintiffs in 75 percent of all medical malpractice trials, according to the federal government's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). read on

In a weird juxtaposition of images, FOX News was interviewing Bob Dole to push the meme that the media isn't reporting any good news out of Iraq with their FOX Fact saying " Iraq: A New Era"-while showing video of violence right next to "good old" Bob.
Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT (David Edwards)

You would figure that FOX would have footage of schools being built to turn to instead of car bombs, and wild fires. Who knew they were part of the evil-liberal media.

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Above: A graphic representation of David Brooks' Grand political strategy. What could go wrong?

And don't get me wrong, Obama could use some advice. But sadly, Brooks' current advice does not involve inventing a time machine and going back to February 2009 to fire Tim Geithner. Because that's really the only advice at this point that would do Obama any good.

At any rate! Brooks is once again upset that the President has, for the time being at least, decided that allowing the Republicans to defecate on his face is not a winning political strategy. In fact, he thinks that Obama learn from Bill Clinton circa 1995 and start focusing on school uniforms:

But Democrats can win elections in this climate if they defuse the Big Government/Small Government ideological debate. With his Third Way approach, Bill Clinton established that he was not a Big Government liberal. Once he crossed that threshold, he could get voters to think about his individual policies, which were actually quite popular. Clinton made a national election feel like a state election (state and local governments are still trusted and voters are less ideological when voting for those offices).

Well, OK, but Brooks seems to be forgetting that the big reason that Clinton actually won the election: The economy, stupid. Unemployment was coming down from its peak in the early '90s and people were feeling pretty good about their financial situations.

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The fair and balanced network has a little problem, I believe, and one that the media never seem to address. If they are just another news organization and are defended by Howard Kurtz and Jack Tapper as such, then why do they employ almost the entire field of Republican presidential candidates for 2012?

At this point in time the leading candidates are:

Mitt Romney.

Mike Huckabee.

Sarah Palin.

Newt Gingrich

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So far Romney isn't on the Fox News dole yet, but how long will it be before he gets his own time slot in some form before 2012 rolls along? Huckabee has his own one hour show on weekends, Sarah Palin juts got hired and is making the rounds on the FNC shows so she can be trained for the future, and Newt is a fixture on the network as the conservative basher-in-chief and thought to be the next Reagan by some of their hosts.

Let's not forget that they immediately hired Karl Rove as their master strategist when he left George W. Bush's side.

This is just plain wrong in so many ways. And the media remains silent except for quick mentions about it.

Howard Fineman rightly calls Ailes a "kingmaker" and you can see that that's his goal.

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum—which is why God created Roger Ailes. The president of Fox News is, by default, the closest thing there is to a kingmaker in Anti-Obama America. And that, in turn, makes him the de facto leader of the GOP. In a relentless (and spectacularly successful) hunt for cable ratings, Ailes has given invaluable publicity to the tea partiers, furnished tryout platforms to GOP candidates, and trained a fire hose of populist anger at the president and his allies in Congress. While Beltway Republicans wring their hands or write their tracts, Ailes has worked the countryside, using his feel for Main Street resentment to attract and give voice to this year's angriest—and most powerful—voter-viewers: those who hate the Feds, the Fed, and the Ivy League. It was Ailes who put the "party" in the tea parties by giving them a round-the-clock national stage. Next month Fox will have priority access to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville.

Ailes already has been leading the charge to tear down President Obama and has been very successful at that so far. In a year they have changed the political narrative when conservatism and the GOP were in shambles and the country was in meltdown. They were aided by a horrendous economy created by Bush and his conservative cronies of course that Obama inherited. The president has also left his base in the dark too, but FOX News is a real threat to the democratic process in America. PERIOD. I'm not just talking about having a conservative point of view. They created an entire political movement called the tea party movement and not a word from the media about this. Even on TV today, pundits and pols call them a wild card in politics, but that's silly, They make Newt Gingrich look like a moderate republican. When has a media outlet ever turned into an activist organization for one political party and recruited members by sending their hosts on location to do so?

I haven't heard the media complain either that FOX is the only network that has access to the teabagger convention. Once again the Aile's machine chugs along and our country suffers for it as the MSM remains mute.