Update: Bloomberg notes:

Unemployment is projected to keep rising for the rest of the year just as the income boost from the stimulus package fades, undermining prospects for a sustained rebound in household purchases, analysts said. As companies fromGeneral Motors Corp. to Kimberly-Clark Corp. cut costs, the lack of jobs will restrain growth.

“This will be another jobless recovery,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We may get positive economic growth driven largely by federal spending, but people on the street will say, ‘Where are the jobs?’”

…

The jobless rate was projected to climb to 9.6 percent from 9.4 percent. Forecasts ranged from 9.3 percent to 9.7 percent. By the end of the year, unemployment will reach 10 percent, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed last month.

…

The world’s largest economy has lost about 6.5 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. That’s the biggest drop in any post-World War II economic slump.

…

Unemployment will “remain painfully high for several more years,” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Janet Yellen said this week. “I expect that we will turn the growth corner sometime later this year, but I am not optimistic that the economy will spring back to normal any time soon.”

So, where is the stimulus? Stuck in the constipated federal government wasting away. Here is the latest data I have been monitoring on the so called stimulus.

In the first graph there are 4 sets of columns showing: (from left to right) (1) the amount budgeted for stimulus programs, (2) the amount allocated to specific programs, (3) the amount spent creating jobs and (4) the amount unspent from the total budget. (click image to enlarge)

As everyone can see much of the money has not even been assigned to programs (an arduous but legally required process to make sure programs are valid). The second chart translates the dollar amounts for the last three sets of columns into percentages of the budgeted amounts. (click image to enlarge)

Bottom line: 99% of the job-creating money for these departments/agencies is stuck in the government coffers - doing nothing. Here’s the summary across all 6:

• $105 billion was budgeted across the organizations to start new programs and create jobs (the largest amounts going  to the Departments of Energy and Transportation)
• Of that, only $22.7 billion as even been allocated to programs to be spent (21.5%)
• The total amount spent to date on stimulus programs: $0.350 billion has been spent stimulating the economy. A paltry 0.33%.

One could also ask where is the transparency. The stimulus reporting, which was coming out weekly, is now two weeks overdue. Apparently someone doesn’t like the fact we can measure the failure of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid liberal economic experiment week by horrible week. - end update

Well, the unemployment numbers are out and it is no surprise that the failed liberal economic stimulus policy of government funded stimulus is still a shocking failure:

The pace of job losses quickened in June after slowing just a month earlier, casting a shadow over the Obama administration’s attempts to stanch months of declines in the labor market.

The American economy shed 467,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent from 9.4 percent, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.

The failure is emphasized by the number of lost jobs per month (click image to go to larger, interactive graphic):

No stimulus money is coming out of the bloated federal bureaucracy, so no jobs are being created. The actual unemployment is actually closer to %12.8 because the government only counts 75% of the folks on the primary unemployment benefits, those on extended unemployment benefits are not counted (as we noted here). Is it any surprise the job losses jumped 100,000 (33%) in one month? And as I have said many times (all my posts on monitoring the lack of a recovery), this will continue through the summer and well into the fall.

This is just getting ridiculous.

OBAMA: Debbie is a perfect example of somebody who we should, in a country this wealthy, be able to provide coverage for her health care problems. … So, Debbie, you are Exhibit A, and we appreciate you serving — sharing our story.

So: who, exactly, was Exhibit A? The Associated Press has a little more information: 

President Barack Obama wanted to put a human face on his plans to overhaul health care, and a Virginia supporter did just that Wednesday. Fighting back tears, Debby Smith, 53, told Obama of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job.The president hugged her–she’s a volunteer for his political operation–and called her “exhibit A” in an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans. …

Smith, of Appalachia, Va., is a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama’s political operation within the Democratic National Committee. She obtained her ticket through the White House.

The first question goes to a hand picked supporter who puts on a televised drama show. Next the man will be hawking ShamWow (or whatever that silly rag is). Our President staging events and drama as if he were some informercial hack. Apparently he always wanted to be an actor when he grew up.

What happens when this guy has to actually think on his feet in the face of a dire emergency?

Seems the Pakistanis have really soured on their violent Islamo Fascist neighbors in the tribal areas:

MORE than 80 per cent of Pakistanis view the Taleban as a critical threat to the country, a poll released yesterday said.

It marked a major shift in public support behind the government’s campaign against the fundamentalist Muslim militants. The turn in public mood is a boost to the military in its offensive against the insurgency.

Emphasis mine. Right after 9-11, the Taliban and al Qaeda were feared to be THE FUTURE of Islam as many Muslim countries and groups cheered the hit The Great Satan took that fateful day. But after 7 Years of President George W Bush unflinchingly taking the war to the enemy, along with years of massacring Muslims from Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan and dwarfing the human carnage of 9-11, these violent madmen have become THE ENEMY of Islam’s Main Streets. When President Obama continued the Bush policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan it became crystal clear America would not be diverted from bring justice and peace to the region, and allowing moderate forces to Awaken from under the Jack Boot of the terrorists.

We now have the end game beginning what is the largest war since World War II. In Iraq US forces have moved out of the cities to positions from which they can be called on if needed, but Iraq is now celebrating years of democratically run government and there is little sign that the new wave of bombings is turning the moderates into terrorist lovers. Violent radical Muslims killing moderate or innocent Muslims is not going to create a ground swell of hate against the US - just against the Muslims doing the killing. 

Now Pakistan has the people behind its efforts to eradicate the bloody killers in its midst using all force necessary, and they are winning the day:

PAKISTAN CLAIMS it has turned the tide in its battle with Islamist militants and says it has al-Qaeda on the run after a series of government offensives.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said public opinion had turned decisively against the extremists over the last few months, paving the way for the government’s military successes.

“Today, public opinion has converted to such an extent that the local tribes have set up lashkars [militias] to support army operations,” Mr Qureshi said in an interview yesterday in London.

Pakistan has awakened, just as Anbar and the Sunni tribes of Iraq did in 2006-2007. More and more reports are coming out of local tribesman hunting down the extremists:

Tribesmen attacked Taliban hideouts in Kurram Agency, killing 28 Taliban on Wednesday as the intensifying battles prompted them to ask for army troops to help, said a local lawmaker. 

At least seven tribesmen were also killed in the clash in Kurram which was the latest in two weeks of battles between the Taliban and tribesmen there that have killed 141 people – including more than 100 Taliban, said two government officials. 

Pakistan’s North and South Waziristan Agencies (inside the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)) are the last haven of al Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan. As the Pakistanis pincer these hideouts from the South, US forces are crashing in from the North in Afghanistan:

Thousands of U.S. Marines descended upon the volatile Helmand River valley in helicopters and armored convoys early Thursday morning, mounting an operation that represents the first large-scale test of the U.S. military’s new counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

The operation will involve about 4,000 troops from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which was dispatched to Afghanistan earlier this year by President Obama to combat a growing Taliban insurgency in Helmand and other southern provinces. The Marines, along with an Army brigade that is scheduled to arrive later this summer, plan to push into pockets of the country where NATO forces have not had a presence. In many of those areas, the Taliban have evicted local police and government officials, and taken power.

This is the same kind of strategy used in Anbar and other Sunni Provinces inside Iraq which finally broke the resistance, taking out most of al Qaeda’s fighting forces. We have the noose in place, the bad guys surrounded, and the local people on our side. This could be the year we see the back of the Islamo Fascist movement break, just as we saw Hitler’s fascist state fall in Europe as allied forces overwhelmed them, encircling them on all sides with local support.

The war on terror is definitely looking more and more positive by the month.

Update: Well, the ADP numbers are out and - as predicted - the job situation is worsening:

Companies in the U.S. cut more jobs than forecast in June, according to a private report today, showing the labor market will be slow to improve even as other parts of the economy indicate the recession is abating.

The 473,000 drop in the ADP Employer Services gauge followed a revised reduction of 485,000 workers in May that was smaller than previously estimated.

Job losses may mount as the bankruptcies of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC ripple through manufacturing. Increased firings threaten to further restrain consumer spending at a time when the world’s largest economy is showing signs of stabilizing.

Stabilizing = hitting bottom. There is no recovery, because the liberal fantasy of a government funded stimulus is a pathetic joke. Will America reward the failures of Obama, Pelosi and Reid to fix the jobs problem with reelection? I seriously doubt it. If states like California are seeing continued job losses (as predicted through 2010) I cannot see that state remaining Democrat blue. With a filibuster proof majority, the Dems now own this economic disaster. - end update

We enter the mid year point of summer with a reminder of how badly the liberal economic fantasy policy of government funded stimulus have failed (vs the tried and true tax cut stimulus that has worked since John F Kennedy employed it). Tomorrow, as Tiernan Raye points out at Barron’s Blogs, is going to set the tone for a very bleak summer for this nation:

Preceding that report will be the ADP payroll report, tipped at a decline of 390,000 for June. And that will provide the warm-up for Thursday’s employment report for June, expected to show a drop similar to May’s 345,000 decline, and then an early exit for the holiday weekend.

Yes, ADP has an independent survey which sometimes tracks with the government numbers, but sometimes does not. But what is most important in this post is the fact that the US unemployment numbers are no longer accurate, and hide the true depth of the unemployment emergency:

“We have 6.7 million Americans on continuing claims and another 2.4 million who are still collecting, i.e., still a drag on the social system, but who are no longer counted as they are on ‘extensions,’” writes Joan McCullough of East Shore Partners. “I wonder how many millions will be unemployed and uncounted once those extensions expire.” Adds MacroMavens’ Stephanie Pomboy, some 49% of the folks losing their benefits haven’t found work.

Emphasis mine and Hat Tip to reader MerlinOS2 for the heads up on the fudged numbers coming out from the same Democrat who promised unemployment would not go over 8% and still think there is global warming after a decade of cooling temperatures. The possible dirty little secret is there may have been a plan to hide the true unemployment numbers by only counting those on the primary unemployment benefits, not those without jobs on extensions. Any surprise there was a new unemployment ‘extension’ benefit added as part of the stimulus package? By keeping these people funded on an uncounted program the government is not only rewriting history, it is rewriting reality. It is lying to us, who gave them our hard earned money to fix the problem.

We can do a quick calculation to estimate the true unemployment rate for May using the figures above. 6.7 million is around 73% of the total number of 9.1 million people out of work the government knows about. That means the 9.4% unemployment rate of May is only 73% of the actual rate, which means the real unemployment - as directly known to the federal government - is just under 12.8%!  

I can see why someone may not want to tell the complete truth here and then face us tax paying voter next year.

More details came out this week on how badly the Liberal Dems botched their stimulus efforts, which have done nothing but put this nation into massive debt. For instance, the pain of unemployment the liberals allowed to fester on this nation has now reached in all major metropolitan areas:

Layoffs tied to the troubled housing and autos industries clobbered the West and Midwest in May and helped raise unemployment rates in all the largest metropolitan areas for the fifth straight month.

All 372 metro areas saw joblessness rise in May from a year earlier, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The highest rates — of at least 15 percent — were concentrated in metro areas in California, Michigan and Indiana.

California is such an economic wreck that it has the honor of hosting half of the hardest hit cities in the nation:

Almost half of the cities with 15 percent-plus jobless rates last month were in California, with El Centro at the top of the list with a 26.8 percent unemployment rate.

Yuba City had the second-highest jobless rate in the state at 17.7 percent, while Merced, Modesto, Fresno, Redding and Stockton also endured 15 percent-plus jobless rates, according to a federal report released Tuesday.

And much of this is due to the fact the liberals relied on the sluggish and bloated federal bureaucracy to ‘stimulate‘ economic growth. Of the 6 government entities I am monitoring, which represent 1/3rd of the stimulus jobs money and include the two departments with the lion’s share of the money (Energy and Transportation), none as actually spent even a paltry 1% of the money allocated to them (as of 6/12/09). That means 99% of that money is stuck in the constipated bureaucracy as millions of people not only are out of work, but rapidly running out of benefits.

BTW - that $105 trillion dollars I am tracking represents 1 million jobs at $105,000 for a year. If this was doled out in tax cuts, businesses could have used that money to create 2-3 million high paying jobs (maybe more). And that is only one third of our hard earned tax money sitting in the government, being chewed up slowly by bureaucrats. Tax cuts would be working for 5 months now. Instead we got the reality gut check for the Obama-Reid-Pelosi liberal fantasy of government funded recoveries.

As we see above, once you run out of unemployment benefits you no longer are counted as ‘unemployed’. The 50% of those  who went on unemployment back when this began and who cannot find work will soon be dropping of the roles. Broke and forgotten, and not even counted as a victim by our own government. 

How pathetic is that for Hope & Change?

Als0, don’t hold your breath that forces outside this country will be coming to our rescue. When we get a cold, the world economies get pneumonia.

Update: What we need is a measure of the “hidden unemployment rate” - also known as the real unemployment rate. No more faked and fudged data from those clowns in DC>

Rep. Ron Paul introduced a bill in February that would require the GAO to audit the Federal Reserve by the end of 2010. Although Paul wants to get rid of the Fed all together, he has received 245 co-sponsors for the bill.

With the Federal Reserve holding interest rates at rock-bottom levels, pumping trillions into the economy and now poised to have new powers to oversee the financial system under President Obama’s proposed regulatory overhaul, Paul said lawmakers want transparency.

“If they give them a lot more power and there’s no more transparency, that’ll be a disaster,” he said.

The bill would call for the comptroller general in the Government Accountability Office to audit the Fed and report those findings to Congress. The GAO’s ability to conduct such audits now is severely restricted.

A slew of top Republicans are backing the bill, as are many Democrats.

There is a similar bill in the Senate:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a bill similar to Paul’s in the Senate in March, which so far has attracted just three co-sponsors — DeMint and Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Mike Crapo of Idaho.

But DeMint told FOX News last week that the measure would have a good chance of passing the Senate if supporters can push Paul’s to a vote, which he said would be successful, in the House.

The House bill is being held up in the House Financial Services Committee which is chaired by Barney Franks. This is the type of transparency that we need and that Obama promised in his campaign. Its time to make our voices loud and clear that this is what we want!

DJStrata

Sorry, couldn’t resist to note when a scientifically challenged reporter attempts to play smart around those of us who really do know science (and the fact the Earth has been cooling for a decade).

Hey, while the Obama-Pelosi-Reid job stimulus package fails, you can always run to New York and sell your children for spare parts to the rich and famous:

New York has become the first state to allow taxpayer-funded researchers to pay women for giving their eggs for embryonic stem cell research, a move welcomed by many scientists but condemned by critics who fear it will lead to the exploitation of vulnerable women.

The Empire State Stem Cell Board, which decides how to spend $600 million in state funding for stem cell studies, will allow researchers to compensate women up to $10,000 for the time, discomfort and expenses associated with donating eggs for experiments.

So rush on down ladies while to offer lasts. We are The Matrix

It is amazing what people are willing to believe, even when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I found this article to be both humorous and sad. Sad because the Obama administration tells a flat out lie and the pliant media run to repeat it without challenge, and too many actually will believe it:

The US economy will feel a substantial boost from the Obama administration’s emergency spending package over the next few months, says Christina Romer, a senior White House official, who has warned against tightening monetary and fiscal policy before recovery is well established.

Ms Romer, chairman of the US president’s council of econ omic advisers, told the Financial Times in an interview she was “more optimistic” that the economy was close to stabilisation.

What a bunch of crap. The liberals think the bloated federal bureaucracy is closing to belching out a couple hundred thousand jobs (as we have over 6 million unemployed and rising). They are truly naive. Here is the picture of the federal stimulus money as being reported by 6 government agencies I keep track of.

In the first graph there are 4 sets of columns showing: (from left to right) (1) the amount budgeted for stimulus programs, (2) the amount allocated to specific programs, (3) the amount spent creating jobs and (4) the amount unspent from the total budget. (click image to enlarge)

As everyone can see much of the money has not even been assigned to programs (an arduous but legally required process to make sure programs are valid). The second chart translates the dollar amounts for the last three sets of columns into percentages of the budgeted amounts. (click image to enlarge)

Bottom line: 99% of the job-creating money for these departments/agencies is stuck in the government coffers - doing nothing. Here’s the summary across all 6:

• $105 billion was budgeted across the organizations to start new programs and create jobs (the largest amounts going  to the Departments of Energy and Transportation)
• Of that, only $22.7 billion as even been allocated to programs to be spent (21.5%)
• The total amount spent to date on stimulus programs: $0.350 billion has been spent stimulating the economy. A paltry 0.33%.

I was going to update these charts this weekend, but strangely the administration has not provided any new data for over a week now and it is pointless to keep showing 99% of the stimulus money left unspent week after week.

What is a reality is the fact the lack of stimulus has left us with record unemployment which, under the rosiest BS from the administration, will stop getting worse but will stabilize in this economic hole. With planned tax increases and record deficits for as long as some us will be alive, we will be lucky if we do stabilize:

Now comes the CBO with yet more news of the sort that neither Capitol Hill nor the White House is likely to welcome: its freshly released report on the federal government’s long-term financial situation. To put it bluntly, the fiscal policy of the United States is unsustainable. Debt is growing faster than gross domestic product. Under the CBO’s most realistic scenario, the publicly held debt of the U.S. government will reach 82 percent of GDP by 2019 — roughly double what it was in 2008. By 2026, spiraling interest payments would push the debt above its all-time peak (set just after World War II) of 113 percent of GDP. It would reach 200 percent of GDP in 2038.

This huge mass of debt, which would stifle economic growth and reduce the American standard of living, can be avoided only through spending cuts, tax increases or some combination of the two. And the longer government waits to get its financial house in order, the more it will cost to do so, the CBO says.

What is Obama doing? Hawking new light bulbs. Last week’s unemployment numbers were staggering to read:

In the week ending June 20, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 627,000, an increase of 15,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 612,000.

…

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending June 13 was 6,738,000, an increase of 29,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 6,709,000. 

well over 600,000 NEW claims for unemployment, and nearly 7 million people on unemployment insurance (probably 3 times as many unemployed or underemployed). And Obama is hawking light bulbs and his administration claims the stimulus money will now magically appear after nearly 7 months? Who is he kidding? 

They say California leads the nation. Well guess were its heading:

Economic forecasters predict California will lose another 200,000 jobs before the recession eases.The University of the Pacific’s Business Forecasting Center projects the state’s unemployment rate will peak at 12.3 percent early next year and be stuck in double digits through 2011.

Statewide unemployment reached a modern record of 11.5 percent in May.

We are talking YEARS of this level of economic pain. Years!

But don’t worry about the Pols in DC - they seemed to be able to take care of themselves:

As financial markets tumbled and the government worked to stave off panic by pumping billions of dollars into banks last fall, several members of Congress who oversee the banking industry were grabbing up or dumping bank stocks. 

Anticipating bargains or profits or just trying to unload before the bottom fell out, these members of the House Financial Services Committee or brokers on their behalf were buying and selling stocks including Bank of America and Citigroup — some of the very corporations their committee would later rap for greed, a Plain Dealer examination of congressional stock market transactions shows.

Financial disclosure records show that some of these Financial Services Committee members, including Ohio Rep. Charlie Wilson, made bank stock trades on the same day the banks were getting a government bailout from a program Congress approved. The transactions may not have been illegal or against congressional rules, but securities attorneys and congressional watchdog groups say they raise flags about the appearance of conflicts of interest.

Anyone dumb enough to believe the media spin about politicians coming to save the world probably deserve a harsh lesson in reality. And we apparently are going to get one. A really harsh one.

Update: Presidential BS spewer Gibbs says we should judge the stimulus package failure now:

H/T Allah Pundit. As of May’s record shattering unemployment numbers it is easy to give the liberal economic stimulus plan a failing grade. And I will bet the June numbers coming out in two weeks show even more decline.

What is really scary is to look at the deficit projections. The Obama administration claimed we would be seeing solid growth by the end of this calendar year. Clearly this will not happen. Which means our deficit will be larger than the $1.8 TRILLION projected. That original rosy projection equates to $6,000 for every man, woman and child in the country - which would have been better spent as a tax cut! But no, now we have deficits, high unemployment, rising energy costs and tax increases coming.

How is that Change and Hope thing working for you all?

We have been blessed with a set of beautiful twin girls - identical except one has genetic challenge. We also have to wonderful older children. DJStrata, our first, posts here often. And SJStrata who I am proud to announce has made it through Marine boot camp and the school of Infantry. Each was a gift. But the twins were a challenge because of the genetic challenge. about 20 weeks into the pregnancy the growth of one of the twins slowed down. We (as in LJStrata) were on regular sonograms to keep track of there status. At 32 weeks the one had stopped growing all together and was in distress.

That required a premature delivery where one twin was 3 pounds, 13 ounces and the other was 1 pound, 7 ounces. Thanks to preventive steroids they had Apgar scores of 9.0 and 9.5. But the smaller twin was in critical condition and, if not for the extra monitoring, might not have made it and risked the other twin’s life. I share this story because I would not want to trade this nation’s current health care system for the crap they have in Canada and the UK for anything:

A critically-ill premature-born baby from Hamilton is all alone in a Buffalo, N.Y., hospital after she was turned away for treatment at local facility and transferred across the border without her parents, who don’t have passports.

Ava Stinson was born Thursday at St. Joseph’s Hospital, 14 weeks premature.

A provincewide search for an open neonatal intensive care unit bed came up empty, leaving no choice but to send the two pound, four ounce baby to Buffalo.

This is Obamacare, where the critical cases better get on with dying in order to save the rest of us some money. As Ed Morrissey notes the real tragedy is not the fact the parents need to get a passport to visit their new child. The real tragedy is the rationed health care system in the modern (and reasonably wealthy) country to our north was so inadequate that the child had to be sent here for care. Our girls spent 3 and 10 weeks in the NICU growing and stabilizing to the point we could take them home with a pair of breathing monitors (that’s a lot to cart around). 

Looking back I am damn glad we had them in this country under the current system. They may not have survived a national health care system - where apparently only the strong are worthy of surviving. Because they are cheaper to care for.

I know that my dad will probably write more on the but, Sen. Inhofe has ordered an investigation of the EPA. An analyst wrote a report saying that the EPA was using out of date science. Read more here.

If you are not watching C-SPAN do so now. Rep John Boehner is going through the 300 page, 3:00 AM amendment to the 1200 page disastrous energy bill. He is reading it in and challenging many of the comments, tearing a new one for Waxman-Markey.

A few examples just jumped out. First off, it is mandated that the Secretary of Energy will be dictating federal energy standards to home owner associations to make sure new and existing homes and structures implement mandated energy savings. Another example was the requirement for homeowners to have an energy conservation study if they sell or upgrade their home. And mandates on officials to force all structures to the new standards. That includes training appraisers to accurately appraise homes as to their energy efficiency (not their real value). Including standards for acoustic standards (sound). I was not aware sound was a cause of CO2 or global warming. Must have some new whacky models in the IPCC.

While the house my squeak this by tonight, there is no way it will survive. Clearly the liberals dems went too far and threw so much truly scary crap in there everyone in opposition has endless ammunition to fire back before the Senate takes this up.

But what Boehner also did was signal the end of last minute, massive changes. He is spending about an hour or more doing this. And it is clear he will do it every time the Dems try to slide changes in without time to review.

My hat is off to John Boehner tonight - he is the hero of a nation on the brink of making a huge mistake. From his lips to God’s ears.

Update: The funniest comment was on studies to assess consumer spending habits which are counter to the bill’s intent. Boehner quipped (paraphrasing)” what we need a study as to why Americans don’t want to pay twice as much for half the quality”? So true.

And interesting thought experiment is to think about Michael Jackson’s treatment under ObamaCare. We know a large group of doctors spent over an hour trying to resuscitate Jackson.  Think of all that expense spent on trying to save a drug user. Under ObamaCare it would seem to be a waste of money. Think of how Jackson should be one of those who would be denied care because he partook in a dangerous life style. 

Think about the world under ObamaCare. And realize Jackson is one of those special people we normal human beings would be subsidizing through our taxes.

BTW - I agree with Jonah Goldberg when it comes to Michael Jackson, is ‘icon’ days were over a couple of decades ago. Since then he has clearly been an example for people to avoid, not emulate or cherish. My original post on Michael’s passing can be found here.

Update: Conyers plead guilty and is now convicted of bribery. No more ‘alleged’ or ‘charged’ - she is a criminal. - end update

OK, I do know which is the worser of two evils. Cheating politician spouses are not honorable our upstanding people, but their crime is against their partner - not the people they represent. That has been a recent blemish on the GOP.

But politicians who take bribes and send our hard earned tax dollars to their buddies to get rich off of - that is a very serious crime against this entire nation:

ity Council member Monica Conyers, the wife of a powerful Democratic congressman, was charged Friday in a bribery scandal, accused of accepting cash bribes in a filing that typically signals a plea deal has been struck.

Conyers was expected to appear at a court hearing Friday morning in Detroit, and was not immediately available for comment.

She is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery for allegedly accepting two payments from a Synagro Technologies official in late 2007 in exchange for supporting a sludge contract with the Houston company.

The government says Conyers received envelopes containing cash on Nov. 20, 2007 in the parking lot of a Detroit community center and on Dec. 4 of that year in a McDonald’s parking lot.

The charge is outlined in a legal document called a “criminal information,” which only can be filed with the defendant’s consent and typically signals a plea deal.

Sludge recycling - how apt. How many liberal democrats have to be caught with cold hard cash in their grubby hands before this nation realizes we have a party of low-life crooks (since no one ever gets pushed out of the Democrat Party for stealing from the public).

Well, we seem to be assured that the end of liberalism will be a spectacular failure. Between the failed liberal economic stimulus package - which is not stimulating any new jobs - and the energy tax & trade bill being voted on in the house, we could see an economic depression coming our way.

The American Farm Bureau warns that cap and trade would cost the average farmer $175 on every dairy cow and $80 for beef cattle. So farm-state politics trumped climate change.

We all know about farmers paid not to grow food. But now, American taxpayers apparently will be paying companies not to chop down trees. The Washington Times reports that as part of the legislation, the House will also be voting Friday on a plan to pay domestic and international companies around the world not to cut down trees.

…

As we’ve said before, capping emissions is capping economic growth. An analysis of Waxman-Markey by the Heritage Foundation projects that by 2035 it would reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion. In an average year, 844,000 jobs would be destroyed, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by almost 2 million (see charts below).

Consumers would pay through the nose as electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, as President Obama once put it, by 90% adjusted for inflation. Inflation-adjusted gasoline prices would rise 74%, residential natural gas prices by 55% and the average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500.

Hit hardest by all this would be the “95% of working families” Obama keeps mentioning as being protected from increased taxation. 

The article points out the incredible spike in unemployment these useless reduction in CO2 emissions will cost (for the last decade CO2 levels have risen sharply, and global temperatures have been falling - more here):

I mean, how many job destroying policies have to be enacted to kill finally our economy? We shall soon find out it seems. The stimulus bill is piling up the national debt and annual deficit, both of which pull investment money out of the economy for expansion and new jobs. The energy taxes will further pull more money out of the economy, money that would be spent by consumers. The health care policy will shutter much of the only industry not in recession - the health industry. Insurance companies will close, small private doctors’ practices will close, local private practices will close.

We are heading into a disaster of epic proportions economically - all thanks to foolish liberal policy experiments.

I have pondered how to write this post. I am a huge fan of Michael Jackson’s music. I am not a huge fan of what Michael had become, as the soul killing Hollywood culture mutilated this fine young man over the years. From early reports it seems his circle of sycophants finally completed their endless damage on Michael:

Brian Oxman, the Jackson Family spokesman and former lawyer for Michael, told CNN in an interview on Thursday night that “I can only tell you that this is something that was not unexpected.” Oxman went on to say that “the medications which Michael was under, this family has been trying for months and months and months to take care of Michael Jackson.”

Oxman went on to compare the Jackson situation to that of the late Anna Nicole Smith. “The people who have surrounded him have been enabling him. If you think the case of Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, it’s nothing in comparison to what we have seen taking place in Michael Jackson’s life,” Oxman told CNN.

Britain’s The Sun, citing sources at the UCLA hospital where Jackson was treated, is reporting that Jackson stopped breathing shortly after a shot of Demerol, a drug similar to morphine. “Shortly after taking the Demerol he started to experience slow shallow breathing. His breathing gradually got slower and slower until it stopped,” the Sun source said.

If there is one industry that actually reflects the liberal and Hollywood caricature image of humanity-consuming ‘big business’ it is Hollywood itself, and the rest of the entertainment business. It is cut throat world  which promotes the worst human behavior short of violent dictatorships. It is an ugly, vain world where prima donnas torture the people trying to work with them to produce a product, where people are obsessed with silly baubles, strange and useless fashion ideas, expensive toys, etc. They mimic people living actual lives (in the case of Hollywood), but spend their time trying to prove they too have a purpose beyond being a trussed up echo of reality. At least the music industry runs on the pure creative talent of the artist, not the telling of some story about someone else’s triumphs.

But the blood sucking parasites are the worst. They come in many forms. They find personality weaknesses and exploit them for their own needs. They are co-dependent wanderers living off the vast amounts of money fame can provide. There is a sad truth about fame and fortune: it robs you of your connection and oneness with humanity. It pulls you from the heart and soul of what humanity is, and slams you in gilded cages.

We see it in Pols who lose touch and think they are better than everyone else, who lecture morality and cheat on their spouses, who lecture conservation and splurge senselessly on themselves, who demand fealty but show no respect for the average person. The entertainment industry is just a worse version, hidden behind stage curtains. We see it in the destroyed lives of those who became rich, and then completely lost any purpose or meaning to life, wandering around trying to ‘live’ through adventures in debauchery and drug induced fantasies.

It seems at some point the only game is who can consume and throw out the most.

For those of us who grew up with Michael Jackson (he was only a year older than me) it was like watching a beautiful masterpiece be cut up, one horrible slice at a time. The self inflicted carving up of Michael Jackson is so evident you can see it in his face - literally. He had this amazing talent, where his music allowed him to touch just about every human being on this planet with his message, his vision.

But in the end his demons drove him to run away from all he was, to the point he had his face carved into some bizarre mask, some distorted image of what one can only guess Michael thought was ‘better’. He was sitting on top of the world, and he was not able to find peace or purpose inside himself.  He was in perpetual escape.

People made a lot of money continuing Michael’s self destruction. From those who isolated him as ‘aides’, to those who carved up his face, to those who sold him the drugs he killed himself with. There were plenty of people egging on his indulgences. There apparently too few dishing out some hard love.

So, I pondered how to write a post honoring someone who, in the end, failed. I think Michael’s heart must have had a lot of innocent good in it, because he had so many dear and true friends. That is undeniable. But his life was a tragedy, and no one should deny that either.

If the entertainment industry truly loved this man they would do him the honor of cleaning up their cesspool of an industry. They should make sure no more tragedies like this happen (and they are happening now with the Lindsey Lohan’s of the industry). One has to wonder: what if Michael could have grown up in a professional work environment AND explored his great talents, would he not only be alive today, but  have been been alive and whole? Would the discipline of behavior required in the average workplace given this supreme talent a chance to indulge that goodness that attracted so many friends?

That question is something people should seriously think about. What price is too much to before we end the limitless self indulging of the entertainment ‘business’? How many more talented lives must be wrecked? How many more Michael Jackson’s will it take to clean up the entertainment world.