More of Walker's Misinformation

On his Facebook Page, Gov. Scooter Walker gives a link to a new page, supported by taxpayers dollars. Some people claim that this is merely a campaign page that he will be using if and when the efforts to recall him come to fruition.

To me, it really is just another fluff page to tout what Walker sees as his accomplishments. I also think he deluding himself and is just making stuff up as he goes along, pulling things out of thin air. For example his site claims that the state has added 40,000 new jobs in his first six months in office. Like so much else that comes out of this guy's mouth, it simply isn't true.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses two different surveys to determine unemployment rates and jobs growth. For September, after four months of steady increase, the rate for Wisconsin fell from 7.9 to 7.8. In actual jobs numbers, the two surveys sometimes differ greatly. The Current Employment Survey (CES) is what the governor’s office has been using consistently in it’s claims of job creation. The Current Population Survey (CPS) is also used by the BLS to determine the unemployment rate.

What I find interesting is that looking at actual numbers from both surveys will reveal a very different story than the supposed 40000 jobs the governor claims have been created. In fact, neither survey comes anywhere close to this claim.

In January 2011, the CES reported Jobs totaling 2,744,000. In June, the jobs totaled 2,775,100. How does the governor come up being almost 25% off in his numbers? Maybe he was using the CPS figures? In January the CPS reported a number of 2,819,301. In June that number rose to 2,831,826, even less close to the 40000 he claims as jobs creation.

Since June, both the CES and the CPS report an overall decline in jobs in the state with 2,755,800 and 2,819,319 respectively. I find it interesting that according to the CPS, the net gain of jobs in Wisconsin is a grand total of 18.

Reforms working my ass, governor. More like trying to put lipstick on a pig. Try telling the truth for a change.

Boston Loses, Worst Collapse in Baseball History?

Most sports pundits picked the Boston Red Sox to win it all this year. They made some trades and spent a lot of money on free agency. They had a lot of good players including an MVP and a Cy Young winner. Still that pool of talent failed to even make the playoffs.

I am a Cub fan. I know disappointment. The 1969 debacle, the failure to win a single game in San Diego after going up 2 games in 1984, being five outs away from the Series, not winning a single playoff game after having the best record in the N, going 0-6 in their last two playoff appearance.

But the Red Sox collapse was worse than all of that. The only thing that rivals it is the Phillies losing a 6.5 game lead with just 12 to go in 1960.

Toure from MSNBC took great pleasure from the Boston failure.

Note: I orginally linked Toure from the MSNBC site. Neither he nor Dylan Ratigan appear on MSNBC anymore. I don't know why.