Holy shit, these people are morons (from the NRCC website via RochesterTurning):
Thanks to Republican economic policies, the U.S. economy is robust and job creation is strong.
Republican tax cuts are creating jobs and continuing to strengthen the economy, yet there is still more to do…
Meanwhile, back on planet earth:
Axe Diesel Palin
http://i.gizmodo.com/5137795/tragic-casualty-of-microsoft-layoffs-flight-simulator-grounded-forever
Says it all…
amorphous
Not "job" – they mean Biblical "Job" creation is strong. Lots of new sufferers every day. But the price of salt is going DOWN DOWN DOWN!
Axe Diesel Palin
Even Microsoft has layoffs – http://i.gizmodo.com/5137795/tragic-casualty-of-microsoft-layoffs-flight-simulator-grounded-forever
says it all.
Faux News
Did the NRCC website also note that "all of Oceania continues to thank BB Bush for raising the chocolate ration to 25g per week"?
Napoleon
2 people laid off at my place of employment today, and 1 more will go next week, and we only have 12/13 employees, so yeah the Republicans are right on top of what is going on out here in real America.
Donna
I’m sure my brother in law, laid off the week before Christmas along with half a dozen others at the relatively small company I work for, will be positively lifted up and overjoyed by this pronouncement.
Phoenix Woman
Wow. They really do live in the Bizarro World, don’t they?
John Cole
DOUGJ- Your next assignment is to peruse the category options past the letter ‘A.’
catdander
They’re just makin up more lies cuz that’s all they got left, what have they got to lose, at this point?
case in point: Phil Gramm’s speaking at AEI on CSPAN live
mitch
Not that I like defending Republicans, but what’s the job loss as a percentage of workforce? I’m guessing 2.5M jobs today is a lot less (as a percentage) than 2.5M jobs in 1945
DougJ
I have. I think Assholes is the best category for nearly all posts. There are exceptions, but not many.
Zifnab
Who even reads the NRCC website anyway? Are these their talking points or did the webmaster just get fired back in October?
DougJ
That’s correct. Adjusted as a percentage, this is only the fourth or fifth worst year since WWII for jobs. If “fifth worst” means robust, then it’s a robust year indeed.
Joshua Norton
I suspect that job loss in 2008 is a lot higher than 2.5M. In 1945 they didn’t have the "cooked books" way of counting unemployed that they use today.
John Cole
@DougJ: You are probably right, although I find ‘Clown Shoes’ to be a really useful category.
demimondian
@John Cole: Really, John. What others could apply? I mean, beised "Clown shoes", "Republican stupidity", and "Great news for John McCain!"
TheHatOnMyCat
We already know that the GOP is the best at packaging up a shovel full of manure and calling it "New and Improved Compost Starter."
The remedy, fact bombs, such as the graphics you provided above.
TheHatOnMyCat
We are only reporting the people who haven’t given up. If we include the ones that have given up, what would the number be?
GMC No Relation
Un-be-^*@%ing-liev-able. I had to look at the link. Now, how do I get my computer clean again?
Reverend Dennis
@Joshua Norton:
Successive administrations have "refined" the count so that today it doesn’t reflect actual unemployment it only reflects the number of people collecting unemployment insurance checks. Once your six months’ worth of unemployment checks are gone you drop out of the count.
Bubblegum Tate
Yes, but in 2008, the Dhimmicrats were in charge of Congress, plus, there was the horrible reaction to the election of Barack HUSSEIN Obama. So really, this is all the Dumb-o-crats’ fault.
(So…which wingnuts are actually making that argument right now?)
Joshua Norton
People who gave up looking for employment and part-time workers are not part of the 7.2%. . When they’re added in then we are talking about a 13%+ unemployment rate.
Some economists claim it’s even higher with these job losses coming on top of slow job creation during the Bush years. That gives us a real unemployment rate closer to 16%.
Jon H
What was the long-term unemployed number for December of 2007? I bet they’re all still unemployed, too.
Ash Can
Whatever planet these assholes are on, it’s too damned close to Earth.
And now, something to smile about: It’s nice to know that our new Prez isn’t afraid to shoot Congressional Republicans a two-handed thumbnose when they ask for it (h/t GOS).
binzinerator
@DougJ:
Indeed. With Republicans there are assholes and then there are exceptional assholes, although I’d say for Republicans ‘exceptional asshole’ is the rule, and ordinary Asshole is in fact the exception.
TheHatOnMyCat
So, the rule is, there are a55holes, there are exceptional a55holes, and then … there are Republican a55holes.
Notorious P.A.T.
Well the jobs "lost" in 1945 were people we no longer needed to build bombers or tanks. Some job losses aren’t so bad.
Joshua Norton
Good point. When the war ended, defense production was scaled back to less than replacement levels. The job losses today are worse than 1945 because in 1945 women were expected to quit their jobs and go home to their husbands. Today women are expected to help support the family with a paycheck.
Napoleon
@Notorious P.A.T.:
. . . or released from the military (I am willing to bet that is what most of that number is made up of since the war ended in August)
Of course it was immediately followed by the post war boom, and any of those GIs could have gone to college if they didn’t want to go right back to the farm or the mill.
GMC No Relation
On the same NRCC site, under Social Security, it says "The first baby boomers will retire next year, in 2006 . . . ." Apparently the Bush administration did manage to get that secret time tunnel project working. (Now we can better guess about all those "undisclosed locations.") This last election made clear that Repugnicans live in a different world — and year, too.
dr. bloor
This is from their page on Social Security:
The site clearly stopped getting timely updates on positions after all the rats jumped ship.
binzinerator
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Those 1945 numbers would have had a different effect on unemployment numbers too. IIRC ‘unemployed’ means you want a job but can’t find one. There were a lot of women who went to work during the war effort, and when the war was over many went back to being stay-at-home wives and moms, not because they couldn’t find some other job but because they wanted to or because financially they could (husband could make enough for the family). I may be wrong but these former workers would then not be considered unemployed.
In other words it seems to me 2,750,000 lost jobs in 1945 did not translate to 2,750,000 unemployed workers. But for 2008, I think 2,590,000 lost jobs means 2,590,000 unemployed people. I bet 2008’s job loses caused more pain than 1945’s job losses.
Joshua Norton
Wonderful idea. Can anyone remember a time in the last few years when the S&P 500 didn’t have a little minus sign and a red number next to it? I’m not opening any 401K statement until at least 2011. My heart couldn’t take the shock.
Krista
All of them.
Anything good that happens is because of the Republicans. Anything bad that happens is the fault of the Democrats.
Memorize those two lines, buy yourself a dildo, a wetsuit and a bag of Cheetos, and you’re well on your way to becoming a Certified Wingnut(tm).
DougJ
Good tip. That’s actually a better category for this post.
binzinerator
@binzinerator:
Joshua beat me to it. In far fewer words too although that is not hard to do.
binzinerator
@Krista:
I got this sense you must have been one hell of a first date.
DougJ
I think you need two wetsuits, Krista. Otherwise you’re a liberal.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
As for categories, "Assholes" is good, as is "Clown Shoes". For exceptional achievement in asshattery, how about "Eric Cantor", because that little douchenozzle is in a class all his own.
libarbarian
If you say "bitches" after it, then it becomes true.
I think linguists refer to it as "veritibitchification".
The Moar You Know
@Ash Can: That is so good it hurts.
"I won"
Fuck you, GOP.
Ash Can
@The Moar You Know: Believe it or not, as I learned a few minutes after I posted the link, it’s even better than that — apparently it came in response to Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Cluelessness) asking why the stimulus package didn’t include more of the Republicans’ ideas. (Scroll down a little for this tidbit in the comments.)
TenguPhule
More Assholes.
Even more Assholes.
Biggest Asshole Today
Even Bigger Asshole Today
United Assholes of America
Darrell level Asshole
Darrell Asshole +1
Heh indeedy.
Krista
Or was it two dildos? I can never remember how that goes.
Krista
TenguPhile, you forgot Major Asshole on that list.
How many Assholes we got on this blog, anyhow?
TenguPhule
"Yo Sir!"
binzinerator
I’m surrounded by assholes.
Keep firing, Assholes!
flyerhawk
Let’s also not forget that the Bushies & Co. were also in charge for No 4. on the most jobs lost hitlist. I can’t imagine any other President can say that!
Wile E. Quixote
I’m telling you, "Fresh from the stupid vats" needs to be a category.
AnneLaurie
And let’s not forget the people who are now working two or three or four part-time sub-minimum-wage McJobs because the C-Plus Augustus Regime carpet-bombed so many high-paying union & white-collar jobs. That kind of ‘social recreation’ has been very good for the Plantation Party (and their kleptocrat cronies in China and various banana republics around the globe), but not so good for America.
an unhappy centrist
I’ll say it and say it and say it. The FDA has been floundering and failing for the last 8 years. Bush and neocons have gutted federal agencies so that they are no longer effective and cannot do what they were designed to do. Obviously this includes the FDA. There have been so many people killed or injured by incidences of poisoned food in recent years that it would take pages to list. Anybody who voted for the last eight years of governance by the Republican crooks and liars is as much to blame when this kind of thing happens as the actual criminals themselves.
Republican Killers. Of Babies. Women. Children. Men. Murderers!
fuller
In 1945 the US population was just under 140 million. In 2008 the population is over 350 million. Percentage wise, we are still at less than 1/2 of the 1945 numbers. Not that things are not bad – they are very bad. I hope and pray that things do improve. I for one will do my part to help others any way I can. We should all try to help each other.