Dog days of AugusTTT 2012

There was a small drop in legal employment in August but there also remain small gains over August 2011 and 2010. The short story is that legal employment has not budged in two years.

Stay home in November

I was going to make this a separate post but am bad about letting things slide, so here goes. Please stay home this November. In the past, particularly with an incumbent running, I've supported the least worst candidate, usually while holding my nose. This year, I don't care who wins.

People need to learn to vote their own interest. That means paying attention — granted, it's not as exciting as following Prince Harry, but a lot more important — and participating. Having been involved in NJ politics, I'm keenly aware of ignorance and apathy and reflexively voting down "your" party's column.

If you're not looking out for Number One then you're just another useful idiot. Trust me: politicians don't respect you. Members of noisy enthusiastic fringe groups, they'll use your energy and patronize you while keeping you at arm's length and then forgetting about you until the next campaign. They look at taxpayers as a wallet and taxpayers' children and grandchildren as co-signers.

A word about Barack Obama. I like the guy and still have his 2008 campaign signs. His handling of the rest of the planet is perfectly acceptable. His handling of the domestic economy is appalling, consisting mainly of blaming Bush, which he will do until January 2017 if given the chance. Obama came into office with tremendous political capital and squandered it pushing through a costly healthcare program, fiddling while the economy burned. His legacy will be a massive increase in both the national debt, which is $16 trillion as I type this, and entitlement spending. And unemployed lawyers, courtesy of propping up a venal education industry with federal loans. And, "[I]f you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own." If anyone thinks Obama has a clue what he's doing, kindly post a link in the comments for all to see. This election could have been the Republicans for the taking, but they're even worse.

Now, a word about Mitt Romney. Please reread above how I advise people to look out for Number One. Romney looks out for Number One, which is how he got where he is. Don't vote for Mitt. This is coming from a Chris Christie supporter who voted Republican until George W. Bush's second term. I don't care if Romney travels with his dog on the car roof, but I do care about his refusing to release tax returns and his "only little people pay taxes" mentality. The 2012 Republican platform is all about Mitt, with some red meat for a white base. One more time: Mitt looks out for himself and so should you. His and your goals don't mesh.

I don't normally recommend JDU, but would like to share this post. It seems hyperbolic until you consider we live in a country where educational institutions are free to lie about their graduates' outcomes yet the graduates can't have their education debt discharged in bankruptcy.

Better enjoy your last Labor day off while you can, if the latest two horsemen of the 21st century American apocalypse, Romney and his bastard son Ryan are elected. No more paid holidays off next year. Going to the beach with your kids, have fun, because next year they will be working right next to you at one of Laimbrain Capital's subsidiaries when they do away with the child labor laws. Think you are leaving at 5:00, uh uh, no more forty hour weeks, just like Romney's Chinese masters. Hurt yourself at work, see ya wouldn't want to be ya. When you get out the hospital, we will put your shit on the street and deduct the cost from your last check. And don't think they checks are gonna keep coming because we just did away with workers compensation laws, hurting yourself is a cost of doing business and you should have bought a disability policy from the same thugs who sell you Full Sail University. Wife want to keep her job, she better go out and buy herself some knee pads, at her expense of course, because there is no longer any such thing as sexual harassment.

Forty hour weeks, workers compensation, child labor laws, work place safety laws, OHSA, company paid health and disability insurance, paid national holidays, paid vacations - all of this was not just passed out by the like of Prescott Bush and George Romney because they and their companies were benevolent. No, men and women too, as brave as the people we honor on Memorial day and the Fourth of July fought for these benefits, sticking their lives and the lives of their families lives out on the line. And yet the fools want to vote for people who will do away with workers rights, fought for over a hundred years, because their precious little snow flake didn't get into Harvard and some black kid from the projects, with a .5 lower GPA'S did.

And Ryan, whose mother benefited from the social security system when her husband died, is the first to give it all back, just like his hero Raygun, who stabbed the air traffic controllers in the back after they were the first to support him. And Uncle Clarence Thomas, who on his way up, played the affirmative action card from the bottom of the deck, and is now too stupid to ask a question, doesnt think twice about screwing over people who are in the situation he once was.

All of you sensible people out there, enjoy this holiday and remember, good friends don't let their friends vote Republican.

If you're not in a swing state, you can vote for whomever you like; the electoral college ensures your vote is meaningless, your congressperson (and Senator, if running) is virtually guaranteed re-election, and the people who only vote in presidential elections are going back to FaceBook as soon as they leave the polling place. If you're in a swing state, let the local Democratic campaign know why you're sitting this one out. Maybe they'll get finally get religion and stop taking their supporters for granted. Nah.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	August	2011	1,120,500
	June	2012	1,131,200
	July	2012	1,132,800
	August	2012	1,120,000	-500
Seasonally adjusted	August	2011	1,115,700
	June	2012	1,118,800
	July	2012	1,120,300
	August	2012	1,118,900	3,200
Change from Jul-12 to Aug-12				-1,400