Opinion
Conservatives Do a Job on Jobs
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
B ERNIE F OSTER
Founder/Publisher
B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER
Executive Editor
T ED B ANKS
Advertising Manager
J ERRY F OSTER
Account Executive
L ISA L OVING
News Editor
H ELEN S ILVIS
Multimedia Editor
D AVID K IDD
Graphic Designer
M ONICA J. F OSTER
Seattle Office Coordinator
J ULIE K EEFE
S USAN F RIED
Photographers
The Skanner Newspaper, established
in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
tion, published each Wednesday by
IMM Publications Inc.,
415 N. Killingsworth St.,
T
he birther issue – the pre-
posterous idea that Presi-
dent Obama was not born in
the United States – was finally put
to rest, but that has not prevented
conservative conspiracy buffs
from seeing a plot behind the
falling unemployment numbers.
Conservatives, led by Republi-
can presidential candidate Mitt
Romney, have been pounding
Obama for maintaining an unem-
ployment rate above 8 percent.
They cited federal Bureau of
Labor statistics to support their
claim. Yet, when that same source
placed the August number at 7.8
percent, they are trying to per-
suade the public that it is all part of
a liberal conspiracy to re-elect
Obama.
Led by the conservative Fox
News network, the conspiracy
about the conspiracy began long
before the release of the latest
numbers.
Fox’s Sean Hannity said on May
12, “the vetting of Obama has
begun, his economic record, his
debt, his unemployment numbers
which they are fudging, I don’t
think are honest…”
Two months earlier, Fox’s Eric
Bolling said: “Four million people
have left the workforce. If you add
that 4 million people – under Pres-
ident Obama – if you add those 4
million back in, the same amount
of jobs, the same number of jobs
divided right now among people
in the workforce would show
about a 12 percent unemployment
rate.
“So, are they playing around
with the numbers? Look, it’s the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s
T HE C URRY
R EPORT
George E.
Curry
supposed to be non-partisan, but
that’s the Department of Labor,
Hilda Solis heads the Department
its statutory structure and its
employment structure – you
understand this simply isn’t how
things happen. The BLS is inde-
pendent of the Department of
Labor. If you go to the BLS web-
site, you won’t even find a picture
of the Secretary of Labor there.
It’s completely firewalled.
“The one exception to this
would be the Commissioner of the
BLS. The president appoints a
BLS commissioner, but for most
of this administration it’s been a
‘It is completely implausible to me
that they would actively rig the thing
to help Obama. The guys are green
eye-shaded career bureaucrats who
have no particular vested interest one
way or another in who wins the
presidential election’
—Joe Nocera
of Labor. Hilda Solis works direct-
ly for Obama.”
When Bolling was asked, “Are
you saying they’re cooking the
books?” he replied, “I’m saying,
there’s room for error. There’s
room. But when you’re talking
about four million people, how do
you know?”
If there’s room for error, Bolling
is in that room.
As economist Justin Wolfers
told Salon:
“First, if you know and under-
stand the BLS and its structure –
Republican. When his term ran
out, Congress refused to confirm
Obama’s appointee. So the current
commissioner is, in fact, a career
guy from within BLS, and if you
know the institution at all, the BLS
is an institution of nerds, by nerds.
“So you could even argue that
Republicans have protected the
BLS from political influence by
refusing to confirm an Obama
appointee?”
Joe Nocera, a New York Times
business columnist, observed: “It
is completely implausible to me
that they would actively rig the
thing to help Obama. The guys are
green eye-shaded career bureau-
crats who have no particular vest-
ed interest one way or another in
who wins the presidential election.
“[The numbers] come out of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, if you
are going to cook them, how
exactly would you go about it, it is
pretty implausible that the career
bureaucrats at the Bureau would
cook the books for Obama. Every-
body likes a conspiracy theory, but
it is hard to understand how they
would do it.”
There’s a reason fewer people
are seeking jobs under Obama –
and it’s not because of a conspira-
cy.
The Washington Post’s econom-
ic blog Wonkblog explained it this
way:
“…Since 2000, the labor force
rate has been steadily declining as
the baby-boom generation has
been retiring. Because of this, the
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
expects the labor force participa-
tion rate to be lower in 2020 than
it is today, regardless of how well
the economy does.”
But conspiracy buffs don’t let
facts get in the way of a good con-
spiracy theory.
Former General Electric CEO
Jack Welch, a Republican, has
joined the conspiracy camp. After
the latest job report, he tweeted,
“Unbelievable
jobs
numbers…these Chicago guys
will do anything…can’t debate so
change numbers.”
Read the rest online at
www.theskanner.com
P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228.
Telephone (503) 285-5555.
E-mail: info@theskanner.com
World Wide Web site:
http://www.theskanner.com
Fax: (503) 285-2900
The Skanner is a member of the
National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ-
ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers
Association.
All photos submitted become the
property of The Skanner. We are not re -
spon sible for lost or damaged photos
either solicited or unsolicited.
© 2012 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED.
REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART
WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED.
To see The Skanner
News on your smart
phone go to
theskannermobile.com
or scan this QR code
with your app.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Local news
Opinions
Jobs, Bids
Sports
Entertainment
Music reviews
Bulletin board
RSS feeds
A Listless Obama is Still Better than Romney
S
omehow, the body snatchers
came last Wednesday and
took the fire (as in fired up,
ready to go) out of President
Obama, leaving a rather listless
shell of a man who never truly
engaged the audience or his oppo-
nent. He looked down at his notes,
fidgeted, and let Mitt Romney get
away with multiple lies.
The body snatchers didn’t stop
there. They also took Mitt Rom-
ney, the greedy venture capitalist
who likes to fire people, and
turned him into a facsimile of a
human being. Of course, with
Romney’s disrespect for both
President Obama (interrupting
him several times) and moderator
Jim Lehrer (who he simply
ignored), the faux human being
turned out to be one that was rude,
arrogant, overbearing, and clearly
rehearsed.
Romney threw out a line that he
had five boys, thus he was used to
hearing the same thing said over
and over as if it were the truth.
President Obama could not ask
Romney who taught the little liars,
but that’s what went through my
mind. Before the debate was over,
it was clear that Romney behaved
in just the way he said his sons
did, repeating lies about taxes,
Medicare, and employment sever-
al times, as if there was any truth
to them. He had another line,
where he said President Obama
was entitled to his own house and
his own plane, but not his own
Page 4 The Portland Skanner October 10, 2012
B ENNETT
C OLLEGE
Julianne
Malveaux
facts. I might have said something
snarly to the faux human being
along the lines of you’ve got your
own billions, your own Super-
PACs, but you can’t buy your own
cutting spending, and he cites
Public Broadcasting as one of the
cuts he would make. Public
Broadcasting represents less than
one-thousandth of 1 percent of the
entire federal budget, so cutting it
won’t make much difference to
the deficits he is quick to rail
against.
President Obama was right to
push Romney on specifics to
some of the plans he said he had.
There were no specifics, just the
frequent exhortation that “I have a
plan to deal with that.” What
plan? Voters can’t judge unless we
Public Broadcasting represents less
than one-thousandth of 1 percent of
the entire federal budget, so cutting it
won’t make much difference to the
deficits he is quick to rail against
facts. While President Obama
does not to be as sarcastic as I usu-
ally am, he surely could have
given Romney a better run for his
money.
Still, anybody who can do arith-
metic knows that Romney has a
penchant for mathematical fic-
tion. How can you cut the taxes on
the wealthy (which is done if the
Bush tax cuts are not allowed to
expire), cut tax rates by 20 per-
cent, and end up with a revenue-
neutral solution? He says by
know, but Romney behaves like a
student who hasn’t started on a
term paper and fumbles about its
contents when asked.
Too often, Romney ignored the
president’s
questions
about
specifics, trading bluster for facts
and getting away with it. Jim
Lehrer totally lost control of the
debate, failing to push either par-
ticipant on specifics. He was not
even effective as a timekeeper, let-
ting both debate participants run
over their allotted time, although
he decreed time lines.
President Obama really needs to
toot his own horn. When Romney
says, “You have been president for
four years,” our president needs to
respond with his list of accom-
plishments, many of which blunt-
ed the effects of the Great
Recession inherited from George
Bush. The intervention in the auto
industry that Romney opposed has
made a real difference is states
such as Ohio and Michigan. A
research paper that was reviewed
at the Rainbow/PUSH automotive
summit found that for every 2,000
jobs created in automobile manu-
facturing in an urban area, another
5,200 jobs were created. While
there are not enough jobs to go
around yet, there are more jobs
then there would have been had
the economy been allowed to drift.
The question about who won the
debates turns out to be a question
of policy versus performance. Too
many pundits talked about Mitt
Romney’s “performance” indicat-
ing that he performed well. The
United States in not a stage look-
ing for a leading actor, it’s a
nation, looking for a leader who
can make a difference. We are not
looking for a contender who
thinks that bluster means leader-
ship. We are looking for a leader
to finish the work he started.
Read the rest online at
www.theskanner.com