so, who’s watching the debate?

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Eating each other alive:

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AP: When Mitt Romney and Rick Perry thumped their chests over their job-creation records as governor during the Republican presidential debate Wednesday night, they left the bad parts out.

Yes, employment has grown by more than 1 million since Perry took office in Texas. But a lot of those jobs are not well paid.

True, unemployment dropped to 4.7 percent when Romney was Massachusetts governor. But the state’s employment growth was among the nation’s worst.

A look at some of the claims in the debate, and how they compare with the facts:

PERRY: “Ninety-five percent of all the jobs that we’ve created have been above minimum wage.”

THE FACTS: To support the claim, the Perry campaign provided federal statistics for December 2010 showing only 5.3 percent of all jobs in Texas pay the minimum wage.

But those figures represent all workers, not just the new jobs, for which data in unavailable. And that does not account for low-wage jobs that may be above the minimum wage. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, 51 percent of all Texas workers make less than $33,000 a year. Only 30 percent make more than $50,000 a year. Nationally, Texas ranked 34th in median household income from 2007 to 2009.

About 9.5 percent of Texas hourly workers, excluding those who are paid salaries, earn the minimum wage or less, tying Mississippi for the highest percentage in the nation.

ROMNEY: “At the end of four years, we had our unemployment rate down to 4.7 percent. That’s a record I think the president would like to see. As a matter of fact, we created more jobs in Massachusetts than this president has created in the entire country.”

THE FACTS: To be sure, 4.7 percent unemployment would be a welcome figure nationally. But Romney started from a much better position than President Barack Obama did. Unemployment was only 5.6 percent when Romney took office in 2003, meaning it came down by less than 1 percentage point when he left office in 2007. Obama inherited a national unemployment rate of 7.8 percent.

take your pick

HolyTaco

‘my apologies, mr president…’

Bluffton Today: President Obama. Greetings, sir. I come to you with a humble heart and mind….

I come to you now with an apology, because I have, like so many others in our nation, taken the last 30 months off from a civil discourse while waiting for you to deliver the message of hope on your own. Yes sir, so many of us have stood by and watched the GOP resist everything you promised to try and deliver, while your own party did little to publicly fight for the same agenda. I think most of us were hanging on to nothing more than the hope, sir. We forgot that we all must work together to achieve the ends.

…. We watched, or ignored, a vitriolic rhetoric, now fueled by million-dollar special interest groups and those still in denial of our natural process of working to form a more perfect union, that had begun well before you won the election….

I cannot answer for anyone but me, Mr. President. I can pledge however, that from this moment going forward, I will not just stand and wait for orders or results before I make a contribution that I already know is mine to make …. Yes, Mr. President. You’ve done what you promised. Now, it’s time for the American people to deliver. I am ready, and I am in.

Semper,

Kent Fletcher

Full ‘letter’ here

Thank you GoBrooklyn

‘rebirth’

As part of the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Vice President Biden delivered remarks at a screening of the documentary REBIRTH for Washington, DC, area college students. REBIRTH is a full-length documentary which chronicles the lives of five people directly affected by the events on September 11th, 2001.

48 meets 44

NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson presents President Obama with driving gloves during an event to honor Johnson for his fifth consecutive championship in the East Room of the White House

From left to right: Jeff Burton; Kyle Busch; Jeff Gordon; Jimmie Johnson; Denny Hamlin; Matt Kenseth; Kurt Busch; and Clint Bowyer

press briefing

‘obama strongly leads gop candidates in california poll’

LA Times: …. a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll shows that Obama’s strength in California has endured despite deep dissatisfaction among voters with the economy. In hypothetical matchups, Obama led Romney by 19 points, Perry by 24 points and Bachmann by 26 points.

By 50% to 43%, voters approved of Obama’s handling of the presidency, down from a high of 60% a year after his election. But the state’s three most potent voter groups – women, nonpartisan voters and Latinos – remained firmly in his corner. Fifty-five percent of women and nonpartisan voters were satisfied with the job the president is doing, a judgment shared by 59% of Latinos.

…A Republican presidential candidate last carried California in 1988; in 2008, Obama won in a landslide over GOP nominee John McCain. Neither the economic downturn nor Obama’s slipping popularity had changed that dynamic markedly. Asked whether they preferred a Democratic or a Republican congressional candidate in a generic matchup, California voters chose the former by a 17-point margin.

…. In November 2009, voters had a 65% positive impression of Obama. Now, that figure is a relatively healthy, if diminished, 58% … Sixty-two percent of women viewed him positively, and 35% negatively. Sixty-four percent of nonpartisans embraced Obama, while 33% did not. Latino voters were even more positive, with 70% holding a positive impression of Obama and 28% with negative views.

The president was the most popular politician measured in the poll. His occasional nemesis, House Speaker John Boehner, had a 22% positive rating, 36 points lower than Obama’s.

Full article here

‘ronaldus magnus’

LA Times: When the Republican presidential hopefuls gather to debate Wednesday night in Simi Valley, one thing seems certain: Lavish tribute will be paid to Ronald Reagan …. but the Reagan reverie will doubtless overlook much of the Reagan reality.

As president, the conservative icon approved several tax increases to deal with a soaring budget deficit, repeatedly boosted the nation’s debt limit, signed into law a bill granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants and, despite his anti-Washington rhetoric, oversaw an increase in the size and spending of the federal government. Before that, as California governor, he enacted what at the time was the largest state tax increase in American history. He also signed into law one of the nation’s most permissive abortion bills; any Republican who tried that today would be cast out of the party.

….. one of the greatest heresies of all: At bottom, Reagan was a pragmatist, willing, when necessary, to cut a deal and compromise …. Stuart Spencer, a GOP strategist who stood by Reagan’s side for virtually his entire political career, dismissed the current vogue of Reagan revisionism: “A lot of those people running out there don’t really understand what he did…..”

… It is hard to imagine a governor with Reagan’s record on taxes and abortion faring very well in today’s GOP nominating fight…..

Full article here

Steve Benen: …. it’s tough to beat the fact that today’s Republicans would have perceived Reagan, their hero, as a sell-out RINO …. On the one hand, Republicans have a religious-like reverence for “Ronaldus Magnus”; on the other, they have no use for his approach to governance … What should Republicans take away from the fact that, by 2011 standards, their party would dismiss their demigod as a tax-raising, amnesty-loving, pro-bailout, cut-and-run, big-government Democrat?

Full post here

uss arizona

‘white house jobs plan takes shape’

Steve Benen: We’ll get a better sense of the new White House jobs agenda tomorrow night, but as the plan comes together, some of the details appear to be leaking. According to several overnight accounts, President Obama will present an economic package that totals about $300 billion, including both investments and tax cuts:

According to people familiar with the White House deliberations, two of the biggest measures in the president’s proposals for 2012 are expected to be a one-year extension of a payroll tax cut for workers and an extension of expiring jobless benefits. Together those two would total about $170 billion….

The White House is also considering a tax credit for businesses that hire the unemployed. That could cost about $30 billion. Obama has also called for public works projects, such as school construction. Advocates of that plan have called for spending of $50 billion, but the White House proposal is expected to be smaller.

… Other reports indicated Obama also intends to push “a program to prevent teacher layoffs,” presumably through aid to states, which would also be encouraging.

I would imagine the details of the agenda will be changing through tomorrow afternoon, but these early reports suggest the White House is at least aiming in the right direction …. these preliminary leaks suggest the president and his team are on the right track, though hopefully they can be convinced to aim even higher with an even more ambitious approach.

Full post here