Right before President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) left on an unexpected trip to visit the troops in Afghanistan yesterday, the grim news was released by the Labor Department that U.S. employers added just 39,000 payroll jobs in November, down from the previous month.

The report surprised all the pinheaded bureaucrats and academicians in the Administration, as all recent indicators had seemed to be touting fairly optimistic numbers, from retail sales to housing. The Federal Government on Friday had, in fact, revised jobs data for September and October to show stronger numbers in those months, even though the new numbers showed a nominal rise, at best.

Y’see, it turns out that while Employers may not be laying off as many people (mainly, because there’s no one left to lay off), they are not hiring anyone either, because consumers are not spending.  Private-sector employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, offsetting the 11,000 drop in government employment driven by local budget cuts.

The fact remains that 15.1 million people are officially unemployed, joining millions more on the sidelines who have given up searching for work.  As of last month, there were more than 6.3 million people who had been out of work for six months or more, up 100,000 from the prior month.

But…but…Obama promised that the Porkulus Bill would solve all this, didn’t he? 

Glad you asked.  Check out this prediction, directly from a white paper published by the incoming administration in January of 2009:

In the absence of stimulus, the economy could lose another 3 to 4 million more. Thus, we are working to counter a potential total job loss of at least 5 million. As Figure 1 shows, even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0%, which is well below the approximately 8.8% that would result in the absence of a plan.

Second, as emphasized above, there is considerable uncertainty in our estimates: both the impact of the package on GDP and the relationship between higher GDP and job creation are hard to estimate precisely. In light of the substantial quarter-to-quarter variation in the estimates of job creation, we believe a reasonable range for 2010Q4 is 3.3 to 4.1 million jobs created.

As Maxwell Smart used to say:

Missed it by that much!

Has there ever been an administration and a Congress who have screwed up the American Economy so badly…intentionally or unintentionally? 

And, instead of looking for ways to jumpstart our economy, they want to shackle those who make the engine of our economy run, our business owners, with higher taxes.

Today, the Senate is voting on two doomed measures in an exercise of desperation by a Democratic Party feverishly trying to appease its base..

One of the votes is on a proposal to extend all expiring tax cuts on individuals with incomes of less than $200,000 a year and married couples making less than $250,000. The other vote proposes to renew the tax cuts for all tax filers with incomes of less than $1 million.

According to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, nothing will be passed today:

All of this finger-pointing is doing nothing to create jobs. It’s a total waste of time.

Democrats are responding with a vote to slam job creators with a massive tax increase. Millions of out-of-work Americans don’t want show-votes or finger-pointing contests. They want jobs.

Republicans are standing firm on no tax increases whatsoever, on any income level.  Neither Democratic proposal is likely to get the 60 votes needed to advance.

These votes may be signalling a beginning to the two parties working out some sort of compromise, in order to get some sort of tax cut extension passed before the Christmas Holidays close this session.

Obama has said that he is willing to compromise.  Of course, when Scooter says compromise, he means on your part, not his.

In the weekly address from the White House, our brilliant Vice-President Joe (Stand up, Chuck!) Biden said:

We’ve got to extend the tax cuts for the middle class that are set to expire at the end of the month. If we don’t, millions of middle-class families will see a big bite out of their paychecks starting January 1. And that’s the last thing we should let happen.

Translation:  Hey Republicans, you had better play along with us, or we’re going to make you guys look like you don’t care about Americans.

Those poor, oblivious Democrats.  They just don’t seem to realize that the American people have already passed sentence on them on November 2nd.  Their every move in this Lame Duck Congress reeks of desperation.  Their time has run out, as their last shred of decency did a long time ago.

All their grandiose plans for the Lame Duck Session, such as the SMART Missile Defense Act, the Dream (Amnesty) Act, and their attempt to hide their fiscal irresponsibility through the biggest tax hike in U.S. History are all going up in flames, like a Yule log.

Somebody pass the popcorn.