The measly 69,000 private-sector jobs added last month and the shrinking job count over the past few months illustrate our “new normal.” At this snail’s pace it will take a couple of decades before we get back to the “good old days” of the 2005 unemployment rate. Combine this with the bipartisan denuding of the public sector in the form of cutbacks and layoffs, and it’s no surprise that we’re in store for a long period of economic insecurity and malaise. Like Bill Clinton, who normalized Ronald Reagan’s trade, deregulation, antitrust, and welfare policies, giving them the bipartisan sheen of Washington orthodoxy, Barack Obama has normalized George W. Bush’s Wall Street, education, and “anti-terrorism” policies. So, welcome to the new normal, where Wall Street criminals go free, whistleblowers are prosecuted, and tens of millions are unemployed.

Read more: Bill Clinton, Anti-Terrorism, Wall Street, Economy, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, President Barack Obama, Election 2010, Bradley Manning, Election 2012, Executive Powers, Politics News