Roland Martin on CNN

Roland Martin says it’s time for President Obama to go “gangsta” on Republicans. Roland, a liberal CNN political analyst, said in a CNN opinion piece, “For me, I’m sick and tired of Democrats having power and being unwilling to use it. I’ve always respected Republicans when they had power because they were willing to use it and maybe apologize later.”

Much of Roland’s call to arms centers around whether President Obama should use recess appointments to get his nominees to their posts. In his first White House press corps appearance since July, President Obama announced on Tuesday he would consider using recess appointments if Senate Republicans continue to hold up the vote: Continue reading »»

Google Product Manager James Kelly

One day after launching Buzz, a social networking platform similar to Facebook, Google announced plans today to build an “experimental” ultra high-speed broadband network in a limited number of trial locations across the United States.

According to the announcement on Google’s official blog, the search giant plans to “…deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people. Continue reading »»

By GLENN THRUSH & MARIN COGAN

Politico: Democratic Incumbents Call for Less Legislative Ambition

Moderate Democrats, coping with the electoral fallout of President Barack Obama’s grand and ground-down legislative ambitions, have a message for their leaders: Stop supersizing us.

If the first year of Obama’s term was dominated by the so-called Big Bang push for enormous, politically risky initiatives — the stimulus, cap and trade and health care — Year Two is fast shaping up to be year of small ball, retrenchment and backlash. Continue reading >>

Civilian Unemployment Rate

Posted by Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer on The White House Blog:

While unemployment remains a severe problem, today’s employment report contains encouraging signs of gradual labor market healing. The unemployment rate fell three-tenths of a percentage point and employment rose in a number of industries, though overall employment fell slightly.

The unemployment rate declined from 10.0 percent to 9.7 percent. This decline occurred despite a modest rise in the labor force. The broadest measure of the unemployment rate, which includes all persons marginally attached to the labor force and workers working part time for economic reasons, fell almost a full percentage point. Obviously, the unemployment rate remains unacceptably high, and is even worse for certain demographic groups such as teenagers and black or African American workers. Continue reading >>