Today's Jobs Report Boosts Obama, So Right-wingers Claim 'Conspiracy'

[CaseAgainstFaith]

With today's positive jobs report, and unemployment down to 7.8% (cracking the 8% barrier featured in GOP ads), cue the right-wing conspiracy theorists--it's all a plot by Obama to help his re-election bid.  They over-sampled the employed?

Jack Welch, former GE and NBC chief,  tweeted:  "Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change number."  David Frum replied:  "Isn't Jack Welch about the last person on earth who shd talk about organizations manipulating numbers to impress markets?"

Still, Joe Scarborough quoted Welch, saying numbers don't add up. And from Conn Carroll at rightwing Washington Examiner:  "I don't think BLS cooked numbers. I think a bunch of Dems lied about getting jobs. That would have same effect."   

Mark Levin:  "Pre-election farce." Stuart Varney on Fox: "Oh how convenient...five weeks before the election..."   John Brabender, former Santorum aide, on CNN says they are "gaming the numbers."   Rep. Allen West and Laura Ingraham join in.  A collection of other tweets  here. 

Ezra Klein at the Washington Post wrote a conspiracy debunking piece and then tweeted that it was "depressing" that such a piece was needed.   Paul Krugman weighs in here on conservative "derangement" syndrome.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/170369/jobs-report-boosts-obama-so-right-wingers-claim-conspiracy#

LMAO!  So because the economy is recovering it is a conspiracy..... right....

[Fpqxz]

The problem is not any malfeasance by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but rather the precise statistical methods by which unemployment is measured.

There are also labor underutilization rates (U-1 through U-7) but those are mostly used by economists and graduate students.

The fact remains that the economy is not growing fast enough to provide employment for all the new entrants into the workforce.

[Shano]

Possibly unrelated:
I have a HUGE crush on Ezra Klein!

[Random Gal]

Something similar happened a few years ago in Virginia. A scientist, using government funding, conducted climate research that concluded global warming was occurring. The state attorney general accused him of defrauding the government using the following logic:

-The scientist used state money in his research.
-His research supported global warming.
-Global warming is fake.
-The scientist used state money to commit fraud.

[ironbite]

Our state attorney is an idiot