Any Jobber Got The Sack

Jobs, jobs, jobs. You'd think that's all the Republicans care about, since they keep snapping at President Obama for not having done enough to help create enough jobs. Try using that line with the folks at English Paving of Clifton, New Jersey, who, thanks to federal stimulus money, got a contract to repave part of Bloomfield Avenue, the main street connecting Newark with its northwestern suburbs. (Don't try that line on me; I've had to drive on the milled pavement far too often.)

So what have the Republicans done to promote job growth? Well, they've blocked job legislation this week in the Senate that, among other things, would have extended unemployment insurance to jobless Americans who are about to run out of benefits. But then those people dependent on unemployment insurance - which they've paid into with their taxes - are just a bunch of spoiled layabouts. That's what Republican U.S. Senate nominee Sharron Angle in Nevada says.

The Republicans claim to be about creating jobs, and they won't help people who can't find jobs? Who are they kidding? Apparently, a lot of people; the Guardians Of Privilege (note the initials) are still favored to make big gains in the midterm congressional elections, and Angle leads incumbent senator Harry Reid by about seven points in one poll.

So is there any Republican doing anything to preserve jobs? As a matter of fact, there is. In New Orleans, federal judge Martin Feldman, a Reagan appointee, threw out President Obama's moratorium on deep-water oil drilling, dismissing it as capricious. Feldman, who obviously hasn't watched any underwater video camera footage of gushing oil recently, cited the detrimental effect it would have on jobs in the petroleum industry. Perhaps Feldman would have more empathy for the fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico who have lost their livelihoods if he had financial interest in seafood processors and not in two of BP’s largest shareholders, BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase.

Martin Feldman is not to be confused with the late British comic actor Marty Feldman, though such confusion is understandable. This ruling sounds like a joke from a comedian.