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If you never heard a Paul Shanklin parody of Bill Clinton, Al "I
invented the Internet" Gore, George W. Bush or Barack Obama,
you missed a million laughs. Although there are no "laughs" in
Barack Obama's Clint Eastwood Super Bowl half-time re-election
pitch, you will at least hear the truth about America that was
absent from Obama's fantasy version. This one's more honest
...except for the Newt Gingrich plug at the end. This was a tough
decision. Seeing Gingrich at the end almost made me not use it.

Whether you are listening to the real Clint Eastwood version or the more accurate Paul Shanklin version, it's still half-time in America. Half of America isn't working because half of America's job were exported to Mexico, China, and Indonesia. Half of America's homeowners are current in their mortgage payments or rent. Half of them aren't. Half are worried about how they are going to pay their bills and feed their family. Half go to bed hungry every night. The half avoiding the wolf at the door wonder how long it will be before their children are crying themselves to sleep with empty bellies. Half of those drawing unemployment benefits who watched Obama's half-time spot on TV know that when the Super Bowl fades from their mind, their benefits will fade, too. Without benefits and without work, they will join those the Obama Administration considers "no longer their problem" because while they are still unemployed, they are no longer listed as unemployed. Out of sight, not his problem.

Today, unemployment is rising at a rate faster than at anytime in history since the Great Depression. Yet, Obama has no problem getting on TV and telling the American people that unemployment is getting better because the unemployment rate dropped to 8.4%.

Half of the American people don't realize that the US Dept. of Labor's unemployment statistic is taken not from actual people who don't have jobs, or even those who spend half their waking day knocking on doors looking for work while the other half sends out resumes to companies too far away to visit. The statistic is the number of people, that month, who are drawing benefits. That's all it means. It's a Roosevelt-era ploy to conceal a really, really severe problem and make it look minimal. If you don't see half of the people going hungry, you don't know they are. After all, hunger is a third world problem—not an American one.

Only 64% of the American work force (those who are employed either in fulltime or part-time jobs) are classified as working. Thirty-six percent [36%] of the "I-WANT-A-JOB" work force is out of work and no longer receive unemployment benefits. Does that means our true unemployment rate is 36%? Three million, nine hundred thousand unemployed Americans have fallen off the "unemployment radar screen" since last fall. (Again that means their benefits stopped but they remained hopelessly out of work.) There are more unemployed Americans today than there were in the Great Depression.

What does all that mean? It means when you are no longer part of the Department of Labor unemployment statistics, you are no longer considered to be "unemployed" by the Obama buraucracy because you don't show up in the unemployment statistics. The Huffington Post insists that doesn't mean those who lost their benefits are still unemployed. What it does say is that the current 99-week unemployment benefit lifeline, in an Obama-mismanaged world, is not long enough. I can remember when 24 weeks was generally enough time for anyone who wanted one, to find a new job.

On Feb. 23, 2012 Congress universally passed—and Obama signed—a bipartisan unemployment extension for the balance of 2012 for unemployed workers who have exhausted regular State unemployment benefits channels, HR 3680 (the Middle Class Tax Relief and Jobs Creation Act of 2012). (We can't have voters stepping into the voting booths in America in November without two quarters to rub together in their pockets.) Obama, who is playing off a GOP effort led by Congressman David Camp [R-MI] to extend benefits, wants you to believe he is the compassionate leader who was concerned enough about the American worker to shame Republicans into voting to extend unemployment benefits. Obama is caught between the rock and the hard place on this one. While he is using the mainstream media to make himself look like the benevolent leader who twisted arms and forced the nasty Republicans to vote for it because, whatever else motivates people's votes, American's always vote their pocket.

This election Obama will not be touting "change" since that's all the American worker has left: pocket lint and not quite enough change for a cup of coffee. Obama had to sign the bill or every Democrat running for re-election would have had to throw him under the bus to save his or her own job. Second, by May or June the unemployment rate should begin to skyrocket again since hundreds of thousands of those who just lost their unemployment benefits will have them back for 14 more weeks, or perhaps 64, 72 or 99 weeks. The question is, how does the Obama Administration jury-rig the "unemployed" numbers to keep former-and-now-new benefits recipients from messing up Obama's fantasy unemployment rate? Or, how to do the Sunday morning leftwing talking heads spin the stats as a "number that really doesn't mean anything" when last month, at 8.4%, it meant everything?