I'm sick and tired of seeing statistics like these:
While overall employment in March stood at 9.7 percent, some 16.5 percent of African-Americans were unemployed. A staggering 41.1 percent of African-Americans between 16 and 19 years of age are unemployed, based on the March numbers, while 19 percent of adult African-American men and 12.4 percent of adult African-American women are facing unemployment. With the exception of the unemployment rate for teenagers, those seasonally adjusted numbers were up over February statistics, even as white unemployment stayed the same. (Source)
Unsurprisingly, Blacks are not only unemployed at higher rates, but they are jobless for longer periods.
The typical period of unemployment, while always higher for African-Americans, is now at nearly 24 weeks, compared to just 18.4 weeks for white workers. And the report found that nearly 45 percent of unemployed African-Americans have been so for more than 27 weeks.
Say what you will about Dubya, but if he believed in something, he made it happen. He steamrolled his way to victory with far less decisive margins (GOP to Dem), and he did it with far less political capital than Barack Obama.
What we have witnessed in the past 2 or so months is a complete political collapse of the Obama administration regarding healtchare. Initially, they failed to take control of the message, and now they've failed to correct those mistakes in their rebuttals. We're left with a crippled strategy run by those willing to compromise anythingnecessary to get this one in the "win" column.
You want to talk about alienating the base? Well consider me alienated. What is reform without a public option perfectly.
My television shero, and possibly the smartest woman on tv, Rachel Maddow sums it up.
