As real job growth languishes, those with real power in Congress look elsewhere
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 7th, 2011 4:34 am by HL
As real job growth languishes, those with real power in Congress look elsewhere
April’s jobs report is probably the best we’ve had since Lehman Brothers collapsed — the impressive numbers we saw in the spring of 2010 were goosed by temporary census hires — but even the best jobs report in years isn’t nearly good enough.
We can add 244,000 jobs a month and not get back to pre-recession unemployment until 2016. We’re still 7 million jobs below where we were in November 2007. We have a long, long way to go. And Congress is following the wrong map.
Lawmakers want to talk high deficits and weak dollars. They want to argue over photographs of Osama bin Laden and funding for Planned Parenthood. But they’ve been studiously avoiding any action on the issue that dominated the 2010 election: jobs.
Sen. Rockefeller to introduce ‘Do Not Track’ bill
Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va) on Friday said he will introduce a “do not track” bill that would allow consumers to block Web sites and marketers from tracking their activity on the Internet.
The bill, to be released next week, comes amid heightened interest by lawmakers in creating new online consumer privacy rules following a hacker attack on Sony PlayStation data and the logging of user location information on Apple’s iPhone and Google Android phones. Rockefeller’s bill is separate from a more comprehensive bill on privacy and security.
Bradley Manning is at the center of the WikiLeaks controversy. But who is he?
In January 2010, more than 130 people gathered to celebrate the opening of Room B-28, a “hacker space” in the basement of the computer science building at Boston University. The room had two rows of computers running open-source software, and, in conformity to the hacker ethic, its walls were painted with wildly colored murals, extensions of the free expression to be practiced there. That was the reason for the power tools, too — in case someone wanted to build something amazing and beautiful, such as the musical staircase, under construction now, that chimes when you step on it.
President Obama spoke during a visit to a transmission plant in Indianapolis about U.S. job growth in 2011 and his clean energy program. (May 6)
Gang of Six: When compromise can hinder real progress
The Gang of Six is a noble idea. A consensus-driven, bipartisan working group on the deficit crisis, the coalition of three Republican and three Democratic lawmakers hashing out a compromise their colleagues can vote on is the sort of high-minded, honorable notion that is so rare in Washington these days.
The problem? It doesn’t appear to be working. While a report may still come, its release has been stalled, and one member of the so-called gang, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), abruptly announced Tuesday he would be rolling out his own offering. The talks have gotten so drawn out, one Democratic aide has said, they’re becoming less and less relevant. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even forgot to include the group when he recently listed the competing plans for reducing the deficit.
