Video at Hot Air. Joe Scarborough's Chirpy Parrot isn't so chirpy over the mere 74,000 jobs created in December.

Allah links this Sean Davis article. As you know, the unemployment rate is falling only because the number of people seeking work is falling faster. All of the "improvements" in the unemployment rate are due to discouraged workers leaving the workforce entirely.

Davis muses: What would the unemployment rate be if the labor participation rate (the fraction of people actively seeking work, or actually working) remained at the same level as it had been in June, 2009 (five months into Obama's term, and when the recession supposedly officially ended).

The results are pretty shocking -- if you haven't been paying any attention whatsoever.

Yes, there has been absolutely no actual improvement in the employment situation, except for the millions who have just given up and now subsist on the Federal dime.

Obama will of course spin this disastrous jobs creation number as due to the 16-day shutdown of 17% of the federal workforce in October.

How does that explain the five years of grueling, neverending unemployment that Sean Davis documents?

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (284)
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DrewM. mentioned this analysis in the podcast.

[I] havenÂ’t really seen much discussion about the Medicaid figures. The 4 million new beneficiaries seems to be taking on near-canonical status, even being used by the fact checkers at the Washington Post for evaluating GOP claims.

Shocker on that.

This is odd, because after looking carefully at the numbers cited, the Medicaid figures are the weakest of the bunch. ItÂ’s a virtual certainty that the number of enrollments attributable to Obamacare is an order of magnitude less than the 4 million sign-ups implied, and the number of people [on Medicaid] who would actually lose their insurance if Obamacare were repealed is probably around 200,000 to 300,000.

The problem is identified in this Ezra Klein column (emphasis mine):

“Meanwhile, in October and November alone, more than 4 million people signed up for Medicaid coverage. This number will be much higher when December’s totals are released. It’s hard to say exactly how many of those Medicaid enrollments Obamacare is responsible for -- the government’s numbers don’t distinguish between people who signed up through Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and those who entered the program through pre-existing channels. But the fact remains that Medicaid enrolled well over twice as many people as signed up for private insurance through the exchanges."

(Note: Klein has just published more to this effect.)

This is really important stuff. The statistics tell us how many people signed up for Medicaid, period, in October and November. The problem is that people are always signing up for Medicaid. Even without the ACA, we would have had people signing up in October and November. Lots of them, in fact: Medicaid is a program that services 60 million citizens, so the number of monthly enrollments that keep a relatively stable population is pretty substantial.

So, how many of these 4 million sign-ups are attributable to Obamacare, and how many of them are just people who entered the system under the earlier rules?

...

Which brings us back to our number above: 1.9 million total enrollees approved in October or November in states that actually expanded Medicaid. If we are correct in our assumptions above—that is, if 10 percent of these enrollees are due to the Obamacare expansion—then we have an actual estimate for Medicaid enrollment due directly to the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid: 190,000.

That's an analysis of the 1.9 million claimed "Obamacare Medicaid enrollees" in the figures he has; if you double that number (taking account of enrollees through the exchanges) you still only get about 380,000.

That's generous in the Administration's favor. Even with such generous assumptions, the real number is less than ten percent of the claimed number.

And yet the Washington Post uses this figure to "fact check" Republican claims.

Corrected: I got confused about the "four million" enrollees claimed and the 1.9 million Trende has information for and thus could analyze. This resulted in my mistating how off these figures were (by a favor of ten, as opposed to twenty) and general numerical confusion.

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 AM | Comments (304)
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Well there you go.

Over the weekend, Paul Hellyer, former Canadian defense minister, went on television and declared that not only do aliens exist but that they walk amongst us and are responsible for some of our modern technology. Among these tech gifts are the microchip, LED light and Kevlar vest.

Hellyer, who served as Canada's Minister of National Defence in the 1960s, went on Russia TodayÂ’s program SophieCo to speak more about extraterrestrials....

“[I’ve] been getting from various sources [that] there are about 80 different species and some of them look just like us and they could walk down the street and you wouldn’t know if you walked past one.”

Ummmm... this is the premise of Men in Black.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (454)
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The Washington Free Beacon's Lachlan Markay and coblogger Ben K. join Ace, Gabe, Drew, John, and me to discuss marijuana legalization and some other entertaining topics.

Submit your questions & comments here: Ask the Blog

Referenced in this episode:

• Denver Post marijuana site: thecannabist.co


• In Praise Of Libertarian Judgmentalism


• 4 Million Medicaid Enrollees Under Obamacare? Doubtful.


• Obamacare is for your grandma - Kentucky enrollments skew heavily old

[MP3 Download] | Subscribe: [RSS] | [iTunes]

Follow on Twitter:
AoSHQ Podcast (@AoSHQPodcast)
Ace (@AceofSpadesHQ)
Drew M. (@DrewMTips)
Gabriel Malor (@GabrielMalor)
John E. (@JohnEkdahl)
Andy (@TheH2 and @AndyM1911)

Open thread in the comments.

Posted by: andy at 07:25 AM | Comments (651)
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Happy Friday.

Ruh roh. Most uninsured folks are unaware of Obamacare.

DOD report says Edward Snowden stole 1.7 million intelligence files. Sen. Paul, no doubt, continues to think an amnesty is appropriate for the traitor.

Google is still attaching the annoying Google+ to its other products in the hope that it can force people to use the superfluous social network. Gmail users will want to read this on how to opt out of the latest lame scheme.

And, finally, for the early birds, Andy will have a podcast post later, but if ya'll want to get an early start, this week's podcast is posted and available. Lachlan Markay (@Lachlan) from the Washington Free Beacon joined Ace, Andy, Drew, John, Me, and BenK. Don't forget to keep those Ask the Blog questions coming.

[ RSS]

[On iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (288)
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• Christie And The IRS
  
• Steyn:Global Warmings Glorious Ship Of Fools
  
• The Decay Of The Profession Of Arms
  
• Gillespie To Challenge Warner In Virginia
  
• VA Dem Compares Tea Partiers To Rapists
  
• Appalacha, The White Ghetto
  
• This Seems Like A Bad Choice
  
• Man Kills Stepfather With An Atomic Wedgie
  
• Obama Opposes Weekly Reports On Obamacare
  
• Caleb Jacoby Was Found Safe
  
• CNN Eyes Primetime Shake-up
  
• Reddit Gun Lover Has A Hilarious Present For Mother Jones
  
• NHL Outselling More Arenas Than The NBA
  
• For The First Time The Majority In Congress Are Millionaires
  
• Rep Turner Seems Like A Good Bloke
  
• Here Are Some Links
  
• A Polar Bear's First Steps
  
• There Are Times When I Hate My City
  

Thanks to Gabe, JohnE, Doreen, Zakn and others for a few of those links.

Follow me on twitter and feel free to tweet me links between 10-11pm on weekdays.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 AM | Comments (469)
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Must Protect the Precious!

So the WaPo spins and spins and makes even damning criticism of Obama yet more proof of The One's daring awesomeness.

The US Patent and Trademark Office: The Term "Redskins" Is Offensive

So they've rejected a trademark application for 'Redskins Hog Rind'.

The heated debate over the Washington Redskins name has now moved beyond living rooms and corporate offices to the U.S. government itself, with one agency making an unequivocal ruling that the term "Redskins" is offensive slang.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected an application to trademark the name "Redskins Hog Rind," writing that the term "Redskins" is "a derogatory slang term that refers to, and is considered offensive by, American Indians."

Apparently there is precedent for this but the football team seems safe. For now.

To determine what crosses the line, the agency looks at two questions: 1) the term's likely meaning and use in the product's context and 2) whether the phrase disparages a specific group of people.

Thus, many words have been approved in some circumstances and rejected in others.

The term "squaw," for example, was ruled offensive when used for clothing and general retail but was approved for use with skiing equipment associated with "Squaw Valley." And the PTO rejected the use of "Khoran" for a brand of alcohol, something that the Islamic holy book, the Quran, considers sinful. Actor Damon Wayans' application for a clothing line called "Nigga" was rejected, as have been several applications to use even the phrase "the N word." But a group protesting the phrase was allowed to trademark "Abolish the 'N' word."

Likewise, the agency has permitted the term "redskin" when applied to potatoes or when directly applied to the football team, as in "The Redskins Broadcast Network."

Still why is a federal agency in charge of administering trademarks worrying about whether they might be offensive to some people?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:47 PM | Comments (474)
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Caleb Jacoby had been missing since Monday.

Posted by: Ace at 05:44 PM | Comments (156)
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Happy Flying Dog Via @DebbyWitt

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Melissa Harris-Perry, wearing tampon earrings,
re-enacting a famous moment from a William F. Buckley Jr. debate in 1969

Yup.

That's what he says. And he says if you can't see that -- if you disagree with this uproarious claim -- you're racist.

Liberal in good standing -- but white liberal in good standing -- Dylan Byers questioned this, um, debatable claim, and for that Coates called him racist, or, at least, blinded by white skin privilege.

Which is just This Year's Model of saying "racist."

Coates couldnÂ’t even concede that it might be debatable, or try to genuinely defend his position. He chooses to comprehend all things through one prism. Byers must be a racist. Perhaps a latent one; perhaps itÂ’s his obliviousness rather than his intention. No matter. Coates goes on to lament, ironically, that others do not have a wider appreciation for what goes on in the world around them. While wagging his rhetorical finger at Byers, he explains his own worldview quite well:

Â…the privilege of being oblivious to questions of never having to grapple with the everywhere; the right of false naming; the right to claim that the lakes, trees, and mountains of our world do not exist; the right to insult our intelligence with your ignorance.

Then again, that might be a charitable take. It’s more likely that Coates is aware of what he’s doing. Why else does he move goalposts in the piece — content, by the end, to argue that Melissa Harris-Perry is merely a shunned black intellectual?

Now, if Ms. Harris-Perry is such big intellectual shakes, surely Mr. Coates must have frequently referenced her important academic work before she joined MSNBC as a TV Clown.

Now, I hadnÂ’t heard of Harris-Perry before she was on TV. That means nothing. Apparently I have genetic and pigmentary disposition towards obliviousness. So I turn to a specialist: Coates. As far as I can tell (via Google) he didnÂ’t see fit to mention the AmericaÂ’s foremost intellectual until she was on television. Maybe I missed something. I scanned an array of liberal publications. Other than The Nation, where she writes, Harris-Perry was barely mentioned anywhere until she was on television. In these liberal publications, she is never (as far as I could tell) referred to as a leading intellectual, much less a foremost intellectual. ThatÂ’s certainly no way to treat the sharpest interlocutors of this historic era.

In fact, using CoatesÂ’ criteria Rachel Maddow has a far stronger claim to the throne of foremost intellectual. And if you disagree, youÂ’re a homophobe.

Speaking of actually important public intellectuals (who happen to be black): Thomas Sowell is an intellectual in a real discipline, not a faked up "here's a new way to say racist or sexist this month" "studies" sort of field.

And he's got a column about Bill DeBlasio's Marxism.

Posted by: Ace at 02:11 PM | Comments (471)
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