The President's Day

Let's give Barack Obama today. The jobs report came out and it revised both November and December upwards and showed that January produced 257,000 new private sector jobs, while losing 14,000 public sector jobs. The real good news is that projections that public sector losses have bottomed out look to be true.

So now we have a standard unemployment rate of 8.3%, which might mean that we could see unemployment around November at slightly under the 7.8% Obama came in with. Nate the Great Silver does an analysis at www.fivethirtyeight.com where he projects Obama's re-election chances with various job creation rates. Silver believes Obama's approval rating is not quite into the re-election territory but could get there soon. He says based on his regression analysis that if the economy generates about 151,000 jobs per month until November, then Obama has a great chance at re-election.

The other good news was that veteran unemployment has fallen dramatically from horrible highs.

The DOW and Nasdaq are now at the highs of the pre-financial levels. Nasdaq closed to day at a 11-year high.

Oh, another item. It appears Orly Taitz lost another one--the case in Georgia, where Obama has been subpoenaed and refused to go. The judge today flat out told her that her case had no basis in fact or merit. This case had generated enormous news among right-wing bloggers, saying this would finally prove President Obama wasn't eligible for the presidency. No dice.

If you can figure out the Susan Komen Foundation mess, you are better than I am. One can not think of such a perfect storm of a PR disaster as their announcement they were cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood netted a few million in just 24 hours. Mayor Bloomberg pledged $250,000 and then Lance Armstrong came in with a matching grant. Presidents of state Koman Foundation branches abandoned ship. Then Komen went further by saying they would not longer fund stem cell research on breast cancer. All of this motivated by extreme anti-abortion members of the organization and their policy chief. By this afternoon, after considerable damage has been done, they claim to have reversed their decision. Planned Parenthood up a few million and Komen seriously damaged. For what?

Another bit of good news for President Obama--The Koch Brothers held their billionaire retreat and they pledged $60 million of their own money and combined with their friends a total of $100 million to defeat President Obama. Maybe it was President Obama's ads about secretive oil billionaires attacking him that prompted this little snit fit.

Apparently Willard looks like he will win Nevada, since he gets about 95% of the Mormon vote. Willard is looking just terrific after receiving the Donald's somewhat botched endorsement. He was almost speechless on the jobs report. Congressional Republicans are taking the tack that this is good news for Americans but more should be done. However, their biggest jobs program initiative, according to Speaker Boehner, is the Keystone XL Pipeline. I guess you can hoodwink some people some of the time.

And a look back--The last January of George W's Presidency saw jobs losses of 810,000. Heckuva Job, Brownie.