Jobless Claims Rise Again While Media Focuses On Akin

Commentary | With less than 80 days to go until what many political pundits are calling “the most important election in American history,” the media is still ignoring another week of rising jobless claims, unemployment, the struggling economy, and the Medicare debate to focus almost entirely on one outrageously dumb comment by Rep. Todd Akin.

By now there is probably not a voter anywhere, unless they are living in a cave, that has not heard how Todd Akin made the most foolish and offensive comment on rape ever made by a human being who still retained brain function.

The Media Research Center reported that as of Wednesday, Akin had received 89 minutes of coverage as opposed to only 20 minutes coverage of Vice President Biden’s much condemned, and highly offensive, “The Republicans are gonna put y’all in chains” comment.

There isn’t a media outlet in the country that isn’t beating the Akin horse to death, and a slow death at that. Since he made his original comment on Monday, the story has been on every news show, every talk show, page one of every newspaper, and the homepage of every online news website. Four days later the trend continues with both the Washington Post and the New York Times still running front page features on the hapless Todd Akin.

Once the media tired of covering his original idiotic comment, they produced thousands of stories demanding that Akin remove himself from Missouri’s Senate race. Even after Akin made it quite clear he had no intention of quitting the campaign, the media continued with an endless stream of articles speculating on how Akin might quit the race later. Any other news concerning the incredibly important race for the Presidency was swept to the wayside.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, more Americans than ever are out of work and applying for benefits. Today’s report from the US Department of Labor, stated:

“In the week ending August 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 372,000, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 368,000.”

One of the few Obama staffers talking about the economy is Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager for Obama, who is blissfully misstating the unemployment figures as if there isn’t a journalist alive who is capable of using Factcheck.Org. She went on MSNBC yesterday and made this statement, loaded with inaccuracies and manipulated figures:

“Well, I think that worker probably has a good understanding of what’s happened over the past four years in terms of the president coming in and seeing 800,000 jobs lost on the day that the president was being sworn in, and seeing the president moving pretty quickly to stem the losses, to turn the economy around, and over the past, you know, 27 months we’ve created 4.5 million private sector jobs. That’s more jobs than in the Bush recovery, in the Reagan recovery, there’s obviously more we need to do, and as I said to Mika at the at beginning of the program, I think that unemployed worker probably sees one person in this race trying to move the country forward and that’s the President.”

While it is true that both parties excel at cleverly manipulating facts and figures to suit their own narrative, the simple truth is that Barack Obama can not hold a candle to Ronald Reagan’s success at creating jobs. According to the chart from the very liberal Washington Post, Reagan created 16.7 million jobs while he was President and kept unemployment to 5.4 percent.

On the other hand, only 200,000 more people are employed today then when Obama took office, and the country is experiencing 8.2 percent unemployment. Obama isn’t even in the same ballpark as Ronald Reagan when it comes to job creation, but that isn’t stopping Stephanie Cutler from spreading her fantasy figures.

Back on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney has been up in arms about the tone and content of the Obama campaign. Romney contends that while they want to address the issues that are important to American voters, Obama prefers to focus on personal attacks. The Romney people cite Harry Reid’s lies about the governor’s tax returns as an example of the Obama strategy.

This remarkable pair of emails, sent last night to journalist John Nolte and published today on Andrew Breitbart’s website, tell a fascinating tale of two political parties and their differing concerns for 2012.

From: Sandra Fluke

Date: Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 6:30 PM

Subject: “Legitimate rape”

Friend — …

I entered this national debate on women’s rights in February, when, as a Georgetown Law student, I testified before members of Congress on the issue of contraception.

Without knowing me or my story, Rush Limbaugh called me a “slut” and a “prostitute” on his radio show.

Many Americans stepped forward to tell me they agreed with me, and supported my right to speak out without being verbally attacked. President Obama stood with us.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand? He didn’t even condemn the remark, instead saying only: “It’s not the language I would have used.”

From: Romney for President

Date: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 6:35 PM

Subject: We want this debate

We want this debate on Medicare — we are ready for it, and we will win it. It’s mind-boggling to hear President Obama and his liberal cronies level deceptive and desperate claims about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s plan to protect and strengthen Medicare.

It’s ironic, because some four years ago, Obama campaigned against “drastic cuts in Medicare.” Yet, President Obama turned Medicare into a piggy bank for Obamacare — and he raided $716 billion from Medicare to pay for his Obamacare monstrosity.

His campaign calls this an achievement — we call this a raid.

Nolte pulls no punches in his article, entitled “Romney: Let’s Talk Medicare – Obama: Let’s Talk About How Romney Hates Women.” He accuses the media of engaging in what he calls a “hide in plain sight conspiracy” to avoid any discussion of the issues that matter to the voters. He verbally thrashes American mass media when he says, “We’re four years into a brutal recession, people are suffering, Obama’s policies have failed miserably and all he’s promising is more of the same — and the media doesn’t care.”

And so it goes here in America. Obama cries, “Forward,” while Conservatives predict doom, and shed a tear for the America they used to know. A country that was proud to be a beacon of hope for the world, instead of apologizing for being exceptional. A country that had 5.4 percent unemployment, and a booming economy, instead of a 16 trillion dollar deficit, and real unemployment that is probably closer to 15 percent.

No matter what may transpire in the days and month ahead, and no matter who may be the next President of the United States, one thing is certain. The world is not going to tolerate America’s insane deficit much longer. If our elected officials don’t start doing their jobs, and start to dramatically reduce the deficit, we may all be paying for a loaf of bread with a wheelbarrow full of worthless twenty dollar bills. It has happened before in other countries, and if, God forbid, the rest of the industrial nations decide to drop the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, it can happen here.