Mitt Romney tweets that “more Americans have lost their jobs under Barack Obama than any president in modern history”

With the perception swelling that he will be the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney has increasingly moved his attention away from his party rivals to President Barack Obama.

On Jan. 16, 2012, Romney sent a tweet blasting Obama for his jobs record.

"More Americans have lost their jobs under Barack Obama than any president in modern history," Romney wrote.

Several readers asked us to check it out.

First, we should mention that there is no useful statistic for "Americans (who) have lost their jobs" during a given time period. The labor force is fluid, so people who lose their jobs often move quickly into another one. Instead, economists use the concept of net jobs gained or lost -- how many more (or fewer) people were employed on Date B than on Date A.

When we asked the Romney campaign for backup material, they confirmed that they were talking about net jobs lost under a given president. So that’s the measure we used.

We found that Obama is indeed the only president to have a net job loss if you count from inauguration day until the end of the presidency. But it’s not necessarily fair to credit or blame presidents for jobs created or lost during the first year on the job, since the president’s policies have not had time to take effect.

Instead, if you start the count at one year into a president's term and end it one year -- a somewhat arbitrary method, but a defensible one -- it turns out that the Obama administration has presided over a net increase in jobs. So using this method, the premise of the Romney claim -- that the net jobs change for the nation as a whole under Obama was negative -- evaporates. In fact, using this method means that Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, becomes the only president to lose jobs on his watch.

Let’s dig deeper into the numbers.

The numbers starting at inauguration day

As we noted, the numbers provided by the Romney campaign used jobs figures for the president’s first and last days in office. To replicate the campaign's math, we turned to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency that tracks employment figures going back decades. Due to BLS data constraints and Romney’s use of the term "modern" presidents, we limited our search to presidents from Harry Truman on.

In previous fact checks, we’ve tried to adjust for the time each president has spent in office. But since the Romney tweet was clear about referring to total numbers of people who lost jobs, rather than the rate at which people were losing jobs under each president, we did not take that additional step for this item.

We first calculated how many jobs were gained or lost during each president’s tenure on a net basis. We also tried to adjust for the size of the population by dividing the net job gain or loss by the nation’s estimated population during the president’s first year in office. (Comparing jobs gained or lost under Obama, when the U.S. population is more than 300 million, to the changes under Truman, when the population was below 140 million, is comparing apples and oranges.)

In this chart, the first number refers to the net jobs gained or lost during the president’s tenure starting at the very beginning of his term, and the second number refers to the net change in jobs as a percentage of the U.S. population. The presidents are listed in descending order by most jobs created:
1. Bill Clinton + 22,744,000 +8.8 percent of population
2. Ronald Reagan + 16,102,000 +7.0 percent of population
3. Lyndon B. Johnson + 12,183,000 +6.3 percent of population
4. Jimmy Carter + 10,339,000 +4.7 percent of population
5. Richard Nixon + 9,181,000 +4.5 percent of population
6. Harry Truman + 8,083,000 +5.8 percent of population
7. John F. Kennedy + 3,538,000 +1.9 percent of population
8. Dwight Eisenhower + 3,572,000 +2.2 percent of population
9. George H.W. Bush + 2,592,000 +1.1 percent of population
10. Gerald Ford + 2,073,000 +1.0 percent of population
11. George W. Bush + 1,094,000 +0.4 percent of population
12. Barack Obama - 1,663,000 -0.5 percent of population



So by this measure, Romney is right: Obama is the only president who saw a net job loss during his presidency. This means it’s reasonable for him to say that "more Americans have lost their jobs under Barack Obama than any president in modern history."

But, as we noted, that’s not the only way to look at it.

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Monsanto & Cancer Milk: FOX NEWS KILLS STORY & FIRES Reporters

FOX NEWS Reporters (Reporters Steve Wilson & Jane Akre) uncover that most of the Milk in the USA and across some parts of the world is unfit to drink due to Monsanto Corporation's POSILAC®, which has been proven to be a cancer-causing growth hormone.(known in short as "BGH" "BST" or "rBGH" ), but they were fired for trying to tell people the truth. (Important note: After a long court battle, the Court dismissed the whistle blowers protection for the reporters because the Court stated that there was no law to force that the NEWS state the truth! Fact! Going on to say the NEWS was no different than other TV shows/reality shows!!) But the FDA has turned a blind eye once again! If you consumed or fed regular milk to your family today (8/21/08), there is more than a 90% chance that it was from a cow injected with BGH (Bovine somatotropin developed by using recombinant DNA technology). You could be killing or harming your child every time you pour them a glass of milk, the same as pouring them a glass of slow acting poison. Please take action to ensure our children's safety, for they can not protect themselves. What first alarmed farmers was the massive amount of PUS in the milk but Monsanto and the FDA still had no concerns by stating that the PUS was not harmful to be ingested by consumers! If you have little children, at least feed them certified BGH free Milk, Organic Milk or Organic/BGM free milk equivalent like Organic soy milk.
Tags: fox news censored steve wilson jane cancer monsanto milk kills

Kucinich Announces ‘Game Changing’ Constitutional Amendment to Publicly Finance Federal Elections

Congressman Kucinich


Washington, Jan 19 -

On the eve of the second anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United, which opened the floodgate of unlimited, shadowy corporate spending in public elections, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has introduced H. J. Res. 100, a constitutional amendment to rescue American democracy from corporate money’s corrupting influence.

“Because of the decision by the Supreme Court majority in the Citizens United case, more money was spent on campaigns in the 2010 election than has ever been spent in a mid-term election.

“Because of the Citizens United case, more money will be spent in the 2012 elections than has ever been spent in an election in the history of our country.

“Because of the Citizens United case, American democracy has been put up on the auction block,” said Kucinich.

Read more: http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=275443

" Can we toss around the idea that Congress has broken its oath by not collecting the people's revenue

as that is their primary job? And, given the results of this dereliction of duty, why wouldn't this negligence be considered treasonous against the interest of the American people? And also, given that borrowing money with interest is not in the best interest when revenue can be collected by liens against property and cash, wouldn't it be prudent to discern if the members who brought this action to create debt instead of collect revenue, aren't actually shareholders of the Federal Reserve Board, collecting 6% income on our debt? Is anyone paying attention to these particular details? And can we not make a case and prosecute? And isn't death a likely sentence of treasonous acts against the best interest of the public? Where am I going wrong in this logic, if at all? "

More at link above...

Jonathan Turley: Losing our liberties

Jonathan Turley
Friday, Jan 13, 2012
Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

More at link above...

jturley@law.gwu.edu

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University.

Noodle Brain Productions present the Integrity Tone Scale in 4 parts.

Uploaded by msnoodlebrain on Dec 14, 2011

Noodle Brain Productions present the Integrity Tone Scale movie as produced in 2004-2005 Channel 29 Public Access San Francisco annual movie series. This movie brings to life the education module found at http://www.noodlebrain.com/nbpits.swf through on-street videos of San Francisco's professionals, students, activists, and tourists found from the Haight St to City College! This movie is in four parts and totals one hour in length. This movie is based on THE INTEGRITY TONE SCALE created by Vern Black and David B Goodstein back in 1978, which was offered in workshops to entrepreneurs. Want to get a review of your own integrity or understand how to get out of the PITS? Try this and enjoy the show. Credits for cast, music, and copyright information at end of movie.

Senate Votes To Let Military Detain Americans Indefinitely, White House Threatens Veto

WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted Tuesday to keep a controversial provision to let the military detain terrorism suspects on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without trial -- prompting White House officials to reissue a veto threat.

The measure, part of the massive National Defense Authorization Act, was also opposed by civil libertarians on the left and right. But 16 Democrats and an independent joined with Republicans to defeat an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) that would have killed the provision, voting it down with 61 against, and 37 for it.

"I'm very, very, concerned about having U.S. citizens sent to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the Senate's most conservative members.

Paul's top complaint is that a terrorism suspect would get just one hearing where the military could assert that the person is a suspected terrorist -- and then they could be locked up for life, without ever formally being charged. The only safety valve is a waiver from the secretary of defense.

"It's not enough just to be alleged to be a terrorist," Paul said, echoing the views of the American Civil Liberties Union. "That's part of what due process is -- deciding, are you a terrorist? I think it's important that we not allow U.S. citizens to be taken."

Democrats who were also concerned about liberties compared the military policing of Americans to the detention of Americans in internment camps during World War II.

"Congress is essentially authorizing the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who offered another amendment -- which has not yet gotten a vote -- that she said would correct the problem. "We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge."

more at link above.