Star article on Kelly’s press conference: Better

May 4, 2012

by David Safier

I criticized the Star's Brady McCombs for his article comparing ads run by the Democratic and Republican National committees for the Barber-Kelly race. I have also said I think McCombs is a good reporter who hasn't had time to get up to speed on the political beat, which he began when Giffords announced she was resigning. The first days of a high stakes, heated special election is not the best time to get your journalistic bearings on a new assignment.

So I want to credit McCombs for a far better article in today's Star about Jesse Kelly's Thursday press conference. It's not a fluff piece or a hit piece. It's a reasonably honest, informative article. An alert reader can find enough material to understand Kelly's position and to see his problems with consistency and coherence.

Disregarding the headline, which is not written by the reporter, here's how the article begins:

A group of senior citizens said Thursday they believe Republican Jesse Kelly is the best candidate to protect the benefits they've earned.

About 30 seniors stood behind Kelly at a press conference Thursday to show their support for the candidate, who has been hammered by his opponent for remarks he made during his failed attempt to win the Congressional District 8 seat in 2010 about wanting to phase out Medicare and privatize and eliminate Social Security.

That's a pretty good summary of the "seniors love me" setup of Kelly's press conference and the points the Barber campaign has made about Kelly's 2010 "privatize and phase them out" position on Medicare and Social Security.

The seniors supporting Kelly get their say, as does Kelly. But the Barber camp is given equal time to rebut Kelly's arguments. And, while the McCombs' article I criticized quoted Kelly's website position on the programs as a factual statement, this one notes that Kelly recently removed a pasage from the site talking about privatizing Social Security, and added that Kelly's spokesperson wouldn't give an answer when questioned about why the passage was deleted.

Toward the end of the article, Barber's spokesperson, gets in her best recent line:

"He's trying to have his own Etch a Sketch moment," said Barber's spokeswoman, Jessica Schultz. "He's really trying to reverse himself here."

Barber is holding a press conference next Monday which will also be about Southern Arizona's seniors. I await McCombs' article to see if it bends over backwards to "balance" with this article about Kelly — i.e., create a false equivalence — or if it deals with the press conference and Barber's stands on the issues on their own terms.

BONUS VIDEO: You can watch Kelly's latest 30 second video below the fold. I know I'm not the intended audience, but to me the thing is so transparent, it borders on self parody. It ends with — I'm not making this up — Jesse Kelly and his grandpa having a moment out of a 50s TV show: Lassie, maybe?

Grandpa (clutching Jesse's arm in fear): Dont let Ron Barber cut my benefits, Jesse, I've earned them.

Jesse (looking gramps straight in the eye): Don't worry, grandpa, I won't.

Watch for yourself.

Fact checking the mendacity of ‘Mittens’

May 4, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Time once again for Steve Benen's weekly fact check column of the pathological liar, Willard "Mittens" Romney. The Maddow Blog – Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XVI: After finally wrapping up his strange presidential campaign this week, Newt Gingrich talked to Wolf Blitzer about his support for his former rival, Mitt Romney. The CNN host … Read more

Why are there no debates in the CD 8 Special Election?

May 4, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: So here's the deal: our local television and cable networks here in Tucson are enjoying a windfall from all of the campaign spending by the political parties and third-party interest groups in the CD 8 Special Election. I assume this is also true for local radio networks as well. This means that … Read more

Income inequality: the great divergence

May 4, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Economic Policy Institute released a new report on income inequlaity last week. Lawrence Mishel writes, Understanding the divergence of pay and productivity:

Income inequality has grown over the last 30 years or more driven by three dynamics: rising inequality of labor income (wages and compensation), rising inequality of capital income, and an increasing share of income going to capital income rather than labor income. As a consequence, examining market-based incomes one finds that “the top 1 percent of households have secured a very large share of all of the gains in income—59.9 percent of the gains from 1979–2007, while the top 0.1 percent seized an even more disproportionate share: 36 percent. In comparison, only 8.6 percent of income gains have gone to the bottom 90 percent” (Mishel and Bivens 2011).

A key to understanding this growth of income inequality—and the disappointing increases in workers’ wages and compensation and middle-class incomes—is understanding the divergence of pay and productivity. Productivity growth has risen substantially over the last few decades but the hourly compensation of the typical worker has seen much more modest growth, especially in the last 10 years or so. The gap between productivity and the compensation growth for the typical worker has been larger in the “lost decade” since the early 2000s than at any point in the post-World War II period. In contrast, productivity and the compensation of the typical worker grew in tandem over the early postwar period until the 1970s.

* * *

[T]he experience of the vast majority of workers in recent decades has been that productivity growth actually provides only the potential for rising living standards: Recent history, especially since 2000, has shown that wages and compensation for the typical worker and income growth for the typical family have lagged tremendously behind the nation’s fast productivity growth.

* * *

The hourly compensation of a typical worker grew in tandem with productivity from 1948–1973. That can be seen in Figure A, which presents both the cumulative growth in productivity per hour worked of the total economy (inclusive of the private sector, government, and nonprofit sector) since 1948 and the cumulative growth in inflation-adjusted hourly compensation for private-sector production/nonsupervisory workers (a group comprising over 80 percent of payroll employment). After 1973, productivity grew strongly, especially after 1995, while the typical worker’s compensation was relatively stagnant. This divergence of pay and productivity has meant that many workers were not benefitting from productivity growth—the economy could afford higher pay but it was not providing it.

Note: Hourly compensation is of production/nonsupervisory workers in the private sector and productivity is for the total economy.

Source: Author's analysis of unpublished total economy data from Bureau of Labor Statistics, Labor Productivity and Costs program and Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts public data series

Figure B provides more detail on the productivity-pay disparity from 1973 to 2011 by charting the accumulated growth since 1973 in productivity; real average hourly compensation; and real median hourly compensation of all workers, and of men and of women. As Figure B illustrates, productivity grew 80.4 percent from 1973 to 2011, enough to generate large advances in living standards and wages if productivity gains were broadly shared. But there were three important “wedges” between that growth and the experience of American workers.

April jobs numbers disappoint due to conservative economics ‘austerity’ measures

May 4, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

By way of comparison, conservative economics "austerity' measures in Europe have led to a 14 year high in unemployment Euro-Region Unemployment Surges to 14-Year High, Nears Record – Bloomberg, and Europe has slipped into a government policy induced double-dip "austerity recession." Europe's austerity recession – European Financial Crisis – Salon.com. Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are in recession. "[I]t seems highly likely France and Germany are also contracting."

"Blame it on austerity economics – the bizarre view that economic slowdowns are the products of excessive debt, and so government should cut spending in a slowdown."

The European recession is having an adverse impact on the U.S. economy because we are a global economy. This is why I have been posting the series "The Fire Next Time: The Euro Financial Crisis."

The other day Willard "Mittens" Romney said his economic policies would be "to do exactly the opposite of what President Obama has done," meaning that he would follow the conservative economics "austerity" measures being used in Europe and called for by Tea-Publicans in Congress. We have a real-life example of what those policies would mean for the U.S. — massive unemployment and recession.

While the April jobs numbers are disappointing, the U.S. economy is still expanding and is not contracting in a double-dip recession like Europe — a recession caused by misguided conservative economics "austerity" measures.

Steve Benen writes, The Maddow Blog – Job totals disappoint again, but overall rate inches lower:

The U.S. economy added 115,000 jobs in April, which fell short of already-tepid expectations, while the overall unemployment rate dipped slightly to 8.1%. As has been the case, there was a big gap in the public vs. private sectors — American businesses added 130,000 jobs last month, while the government shed 15,000 jobs.

It is the second consecutive month of disappointing totals, but there was a silver lining in today's Bureau of Labor Statistics report — job creation in February and March were both revised up by a combined 53,000 jobs. It offers a reminder that these initial estimates are just that — initial estimates — and that overreacting to new reports generally isn't a good idea.

That doesn't change the fact, however, that 115,000 obviously isn't good enough. It's a figure that barely keeps up with population growth, and is roughly half of what the economy should be producing as part of a larger recovery. Ideally, policymakers would see data like this and take steps to boost job creation, but given the Republican agenda in Congress, that's no longer an option.

The overall economy has now added over 2 million jobs over the last year, and nearly 3.5 million jobs over the last three years. For America's private sector, it's 2.3 million over the last year, and 4 million over the last three years.

Incidentally, the 8.1% unemployment rate is the lowest since before President Obama took office, but as we've talked about before, that's not necessarily the best metric for looking at the overall jobs landscape, and in April, it was largely the result of people dropping out of the workforce.

Here's another chart, this one showing monthly job losses/gains in just the private sector since the start of the Great Recession.

Pathetic Russell Pearce plays the victim in wake of killing spree

May 4, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic published a statement from disgraced former Sen. Russell Pearce on Thursday in response to the killing spree by his friend and fanboy J.T. Ready. Gilbert mass shooting: Former Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce's statement.

This WATB used this tragedy to play the victim of "editors and producers all over town making a concerted effort to make the story about a politician whose conservative politics they disagree with."

The real reason is Russell Pearce's long and close personal relationship with J.T. Ready that has been well documented by the Phoenix New Times over the years, and is well summarized in this report from the Rachel Maddow Show (video below the fold).

Maddow's guest is Arizona Republic columnist E.J. Montini, who wrote this post yesterday. EJMontini – Pearce's lame J.T. Ready lament:

Former Senate President and de facto governor Russell Pearce, dethroned in a recall, is angry with the news media for contacting him in the aftermath of the murder/suicide carried out by neo-Nazi Pearce supporter J.T. Ready.

In a statement released by Pearce, he says, “In the past several years the local media has worked hard to try to tie me to the JT Ready that preached hate, and that is nothing more than a lie.”

Is it?

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, editor of its Intelligence Report and Hatewatch blog calls Pearce's claim an “utter crock.”

That’s putting it nicely.

If you want an understanding of just how whining and self-centered Pearce can be, even in the face of such a horrific tragedy, read his full, lame lament here.

Then read a blog about Pearce by Potok here.

Or you can watch this video featuring Pearce and Ready.

Pearce, well, he’s pathetic.