Layoffs, Makeup, and Conspiracy Theories

Our daily look at stories and topics that are lighting up the Internets:

Latest Job Report: Too Depressing for a Friday

Employment numbers came in from November, and bloggers have one word: "Ouch." Employers shed 533,000 jobs, the largest monthly job loss total since December 1974. A blogger at National Review Online says we will need government intervention "that exceeds anything with which we free marketers would usually be comfortable." Barack Obama responded to the news with a statement that stressed the need for a stimulus, and Chris Cillizza says the staggering job losses show the magnitude of the challenge facing the president-elect. If he rises to that challenge, there is a chance for "genuine transformation," says Greg Sargent. Other bloggers aren't so optimistic and say the situation is even worse than the numbers suggest. For one conservative blogger, the statistics "wipe away all reservations . . . about the auto bailout."

And You Thought John Edward's $400 Haircut Was Bad?

News about Sarah Palin's profligate spending—on the RNC's dime—seeped back into the news today, and bloggers do not like what they hear. More than $100,000 was spent on her makeup during the last two months of the campaign. Great thing, too, if the goal was to create "a bimbo hood ornament," writes Andrew Sullivan. Just make sure you don't call the GOP "a serious political party" in his presence. Palin is one chic hockey mom, writes Frank James. You betcha.

From Secret Muslim to Secret Alien

A lawsuit alleging President-elect Obama faked his U.S. citizenship (in spite of an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary) made it to the Supreme Court today. "It seems the outer fringes of wingnuttia are still clinging to a last little acorn of conspiracy theory," writes David Neiwert. Legal records show this case to be the tip of an iceberg: Many efforts across the country aim to undo Obama's election. Michelle Malkin uses the case to equate "conspiracists" on both sides of the aisle. Sarah Palin, she writes, really was pregnant. Obama did not fake his U.S. citizenship. And fire melts steel. What kind of a kook conspiracist does that make her?