Mark Twain said there are lies, damn lies and statistics and his adage applies to unemployment measurement. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes six unemployment metrics monthly, each referred to in ascending order of inclusiveness of the unemployed as U-1, U-2, etc.

The measure reported by the media as the unemployment rate that severely undercounts the unemployed is referred to as U-3. The U-3 rate is obtained by dividing the narrowest definition of the unemployed by the work force.
The U-3 definition does not include whom the BLS calls discouraged and marginal workers, those who want a job but have given up the search because market conditions and personal experience indicate the process is futile.

U-6 Unemployment counts the marginal and discouraged plus those seeking full time employment but can only find part time work. The Federal Reserve tracks what it defines as the Augmented Unemployment rate, which I've read is equivalent to U-6 less part time workers. I couldn't find any Augmented Unemployment releases on the Fed site and despite major data inclusion differences, some bloggers have used U-6 and the Fed's stat interchangeably.  read more »

The Staten Island Democratic Association, the Island's progressive Democratic club, hosted a forum for candidates seeking to fill the late John Lavelle's vacant North Shore 61st State Assembly District seat Thursday night at the American Grill, which was packed with onlookers and 11 office seekers.

There will be no primary. A relatively small cabal of County Committee members residing in the 61st AD will decide who gets the nomination. I moved to the 61st AD from the 63rd 2 days after Election Day. I was supposed to have been appointed to the County Committee back in June, but somehow I was never officially added, so I may be not be part of the cabal making the nominating decision.

Most Staten Island Democrats live in the borough's North Shore and those aspiring to run for office representing that part of the Island typically have to wait in line for a chance to do so. This is why 11 people at the forum sought the nomination, while there may be no Democratic candidate to contest Council special election winner Vincent Ignizio's newly vacant South Shore Assembly seat, if his opponent Manny Innamorato doesn't seek to represent the heavily Republican South Shore in Albany.  read more »

This should be muy, muy fun.

The man who slapped down Sue Kelly for not wanting to debate John Hall has requested our presence in his show. Yes people : Richard French of RNN's Real Live Politics wants to have me and other notables share their insight about 2006's highs (and lows) in New York politics and what we forsee for the new year.

I have a good idea where to start. I will be pulling out links to our most excellent stash of posts for 2006 --and boy do we have embarrasment of riches in our archives.

At random I can think of my calling first Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency after she hired Peter Daou. We also called here Havesi's win and eventual resgination. How about our stellar coverage of CD-11?

I still want to hear from you. What do you think are the highs and lows of politics in New York state? And what do you see in your crystal ball?

Oh and by the way, if you want to enjoy French at his snarkiest, we've got it after the jump.  read more »

Newspapers are blasting the NAMBLA republicans.

The New York Times:

History suggests that once a political party achieves sweeping power, it will only be a matter of time before the power becomes the entire point. Policy, ideology, ethics all gradually fall away, replaced by a political machine that exists to win elections and dispense the goodies that come as a result. The only surprise in Washington now is that the Congressional Republicans managed to reach that point of decayed purpose so thoroughly, so fast.

That House leaders knew Representative Mark Foley had been sending inappropriate e-mail to Capitol pages and did little about it is terrible. It is also the latest in a long, depressing pattern: When there is a choice between the right thing to do and the easiest route to perpetuation of power, top Republicans always pick wrong.

The Washington Post:

Even when damage control seems a lost cause, I suppose you have to follow the playbook. So Mark Foley resigns his House seat in a nanosecond, then explains those creepy electronic messages to young congressional pages by declaring himself an alcoholic, effectively blaming it all on demon rum. House Speaker Dennis Hastert promptly calls for a really thorough -- meaning really slow -- investigation. The rest of the Republican leadership declares itself shocked and/or saddened, but agrees that the time has come to move on, folks, nothing to see here.  read more »

How do you know that Team Hillary is definitely planning a run for 2008? When James Carville starts writing Op-Eds that make the threadbare case that she can be elected.

Carville's case is essentially this: Hillary got elected in 2000 to the Senate despite objections from the naysayers; some of her polling numbers are not catastrophic; she has a net positive rating of 54%-42%; having been through the right-wing slime treatment for over a decade, nothing they can say, supposedly, will stick; and besides, those people who like her really, really like her.

Wake up, James (if I may call you that). It ain't so.

Hillary got elected in 2000 because of four factors: her willingness to work very hard for it, her own glamour as First Lady, her luck in having a weak opponent, and because New York is a blue state, at the time a blue state still angry over impeachment. For a sitting First Lady, especially this one, to get elected against a completely unknown junior Congressman in this state is not illustrative of anything. Whatever naysayers there were, not that I can really recall any, were at best marginal; after all, Rangel and Moynihan recruited her.

With regard to her polling numbers, show me one poll that shows a majority of the electorate willing to vote for her. Just one. No, polls from your own outfit, Democracy Corps, don't count. Then, I'll show you a whole series of polls that show a majority saying they wouldn't vote for her if her opponent was Satan incarnate.  read more »