The White House Hopes You......

[Warph]

The White House Hopes you catch.....

... a law professor's argument that Republicans were never really trying to use Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings to illuminate her views as they claimed.

Adam Winkler writes in The Daily Beast: "Senators don't truly want to know about Elena Kagan's approach to judging. They want to know how she'll rule on the controversial issues of the day, like same-sex marriage and health-care reform. But revealing this information is inappropriate — and contrary to the original understanding of the Founding Fathers. They wanted to do away with advisory opinions because they thought live controversies, with real, not hypothetical, facts made for better decision-making.

"Even the politicization of the process is salutary. Every nominee's record is closely examined for controversial statements or ideas, meaning some qualified people are excluded. But the consequence is that anyone who does make it through the process is likely to have more or less mainstream views. Radicals whose jurisprudence would likely take us too far left or too far right need not apply. This is a net positive: The Court should stay within the broad mainstream of American political thought.

"During Kagan's hearings, Sen. Jeff Sessions whined that he couldn't tell from her answers whether she'd vote more like Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That, however, is exactly how it should be."


The White House hopes you miss....

... economists calling Friday's jobs numbers an indication that the recovery won't be getting better soon.

Reuters reports: "Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast overall employment falling 65,000 and private-sector hiring increasing 90,000. 'We're seeing an economy that's moving ahead slowly but not creating net on balance a lot of new jobs, and it points to continued expectations the economic slowdown we've seen will probably extend another two to three months, if not longer,' said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at The Davidson Cos. in Lake Oswego, Ore."

Nigel Gault, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., told Bloomberg: "To the extent that we have a labor market recovery, it's a slow one. I don't see anything to indicate that the third quarter will be better."

Gavyn Davies writes in the Financial Times that Friday's data "suggest that the labour market is now showing precious little improvement, and the initial reaction of markets was one of disappointment. The number of private sector jobs in the economy rose by just 71,000, which would normally be insufficient to keep unemployment from rising. However, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.5 per cent, largely because the potential labour force is now falling as workers become discouraged about their prospects of finding work. All in all, this is a fairly gloomy picture for those seeking work in the US."