"One of the most important things Community Organizers do is clean up after Republicans"

Mark Thoma, Economist's View:

Are you better off today than you were eight years ago? If you are the top of the food chain, the answer is yes, but for everyone else the answer is generally no. And today's news doesn't help. The unemployment rate rose from 5.7 to 6.1 percent in August, and the broadest measure of unemployment (U6) now stands at 10.7%. That's up from 10.4% a month ago, and 8.4% a year ago.

When you look further into the numbers and break them down into groups who generally struggle economically, conditions are much worse. If you are a woman trying to maintain a household, your unemployment rate rose from 8.5% to 9.6%. The unemployment rate for blacks rose from 9.7% to 10.6%, and for Hispanics from 7.4% to 8.0%. Teen unemployment actually fell by 1.6% as compared to last month, but it still stands at 18.9%. And for the slightly older age group, ages 20-24, the rate stands at 10.5%. And those are all the narrow measure of unemployment, U3. The broader measures such as U6 would, of course, show conditions to be much worse.

Have Republicans devoted enough attention to these issues? No. This brings us to an important point.

Republicans have been targeting Community Organizers this week, but one of the important things Community Organizers do is clean up after Republicans. Without their help, and given Republicans blindness to these issues and the needs of these communities, and given that their trickle down economic policies have not, in fact, trickled down, conditions would be much worse.

more

is a blatant attack on our First Amendment right to freely associate.

Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it, Little Sarah Smartass.