http://www.gallup.com/poll/159104/unadjusted-unemployment-shoots-back.aspx

I admit my mistake and have beaten myself severely about the head and shoulders…

“…was that just yesterday’s assumption and talking points from the fairyland of faux news/entertainment?”
Comment by dave

It’s one of the primary tactics that the entire Ailes/Fox strategy is premised on: the idea that the first information received is very hard to dislodge in the mind of the recipient, regardless of its’ veracity. In this example, Fox knows the schedule for releasing the employment figures like everyone else, and knows that a pre-emptory claim made a day before to those who are its’ more gullible viewers will linger in their minds despite whatever actual truth subsequently emerges.

There have been numerous examples of this, many of them available for review on Youtube. One classic case was the infamous labeling of former Republican congressman Mark Foley as a Democrat in Fox graphics on the day his dubious relationships with teenage boys came to light.

Right now, one can safely bet that mike o’s unwillingness to accept the truth of the employment figures has been shaped by longstanding exposure to Fox News’ use of this “first strike” information poisoning of the well, which would feed into an existing confirmation bias. Note that while there are examples in other media outlets, Ailes premised the entire Fox News operation on this phenomenon.

Nope. Haven’t been, yet. Expect that I will.

You don’t think a $1,000,000 salary is enough? Check out:
http://tinyurl.com/cklzh8t

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The Heritage Foundation and Jim DeMint

Jacob Heilbrunn

December 7, 2012

With his decision to retire from the Senate and join the Heritage Foundation as its new president, Jim DeMint has created a minor furor in Washington. Is he simply cashing in for the $1 million salary? Is he going to launch a new crusade from the precincts of Heritage to protect America’s free market heritage? Does he believe that more influence can be waged upon the Republican party from without than within? Is his decision another sign that the conservative movement in turmoil?

Why not all of the above? The GOP didn’t just lose the election but also its bearings. It has no coherent program for opposing President Obama—no concept for taxes or debt or immigration or even foreign affairs, other than to say that Obama is a bungler. At a moment when the unemployment rate has fallen to 7.7 percent and Obama’s hand has again been strengthened in negotiating with the GOP, it’s not a message that will appeal to any but the already-converted. The GOP is a party that’s in search of a renewed political program, or at least it should be. The process of an agonizing reappraisal is in its infancy.

DeMint’s decision is part of that process. He has drawn the logical conclusion from his tenure in the Senate, which is to say that he has never really been much interested in governing but, rather, in going on the barricades. The Senate may be moving in the opposite direction under the pressure to reach a deal on taxes and the budget deficit. DeMint’s resignation points to the difficulty that the Tea Party has faced, and continues to face, in championing small government. It has no real substantive program to effect change and many of the candidates that DeMint backed, such as the loopy Sharron Angle, turned out to be unelectable.

SNIP
**

BTW re: that mil check out what the workers get: http://tinyurl.com/bcwy3q8

Kristen,

Regarding Demint, this is what I suspect:

1. Demint had hoped the Senate would go to the GOP for two reasons. First, he wanted to be relevant. Second, he hoped to do an end run around McConnell and be elected majority leader. Neither happened.

2. The guy he’s replacing at Heritage was making more than $1 million/year. That’s almost 6 times what he was earning as a senator. I would jump for a pay increase like that.

What Jim Demint sees is twofold IMO. One, he can make lots of bucks. Two, he intends to remold the Heritage Foundation. Instead of a think tank, it will now become another arm for political fundraising which is already tapped in to a lot of people with big bucks. Next election cycle you will begin to see outside ads paid for by the Heritage Foundation or whatever superpac that he will use its funds to create.