SCRIPT FOR TODAY’S EPISODE OF PJ NEWS BREAK WITH SCOTT OTT.
SCOTT OTT: It’s Friday, February 17th, 2012, and this is news.
The U.S. is now in the midst of the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression — that according to the Congressional Budget Office which reports that unemployment has remained above 8 percent for 36 months. The CBO said when you include able-bodied people who didn’t look for a job in the past four weeks, and folks working part-time who’d like to go full time, the real unemployment figure is 15 percent. The current trend is expected to continue at least into 2014.
A White House spokesman said the president knows he still has a lot of work to do, and the CBO report is the best argument he’s ever heard for giving Barack Obama a third term.
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The U.S. Postal Service, on track to be $18.2 billion in the red this year, wants Congress to let it move postal workers from the federal employee health care program to private health insurance, which would save the Post Office $7.1 billion per year.
However, the White House said today that health insurance is a basic American right, meaning that the federal government is entitled to that $7.1 billion, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, “entitled by the laws of nature and of nature’s God.”
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GM in 2011 had its most profitable year in its 103-year history, earning nearly $9.2 billion dollars. About 47,500 union workers got bonuses averaging $7,000 each. Meanwhile, the federal government still owns about a third of GM stock, which the Treasury Department hopes to sell, if the stock price goes up by about 50 percent so taxpayers can break even.
President Obama hailed GM’s record profits as the natural consequence of integrity, innovation and hard work, which the president added is ‘extremely unusual’, since massive profits in the U.S. typically come from corporate greed, raping natural resources, and worker exploitation.
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The United Nations General Assembly yesterday voted overwhelmingly to condemn the Syrian government’s deadly crackdown on political opponents which has killed 5,400 people so far. The U.N. also called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down immediately.
A spokesman for Assad said the Syrian dictator is, of course, tremendously embarrassed by the vote, and will hand over the keys to his office immediately, out of a deep, and abiding respect for the will of the global community.
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And finally tonight, in entertainment news, Jack Nicholson has reportedly been cast as the lead in the new (PHOTO OF HILLARY) Hillary Clinton bio pic coming to HBO later this year.
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For PJ News Break, I’m Scott Ott. Click on PJTV dot com throughout the day for your antidote to obsolete media.
