Three women in charge kill seven sailors and nearly sink the destroyer in a collision with a Philippine container ship.
Story here with links.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
The lesson about Reagan appointee to high court, Anthony Kennedy, who calls it quits July 31
Never appoint anyone from the Ninth Circuit Court of Schlemiels to anything, especially not to the Supreme Court.
Immigration bill fails in the US House 301-121
Good.
Call the Hungarians and start running the razor wire.
There is Reagan libertarianism, and then there is conservatism
Reagan libertarianism says: "Man is not free unless government is limited".
Conservatism says: "Government can never be limited unless men first limit themselves".
Obama's fascist Larry Summers credits Chinese state capitalism for its advances instead of its thefts
Here:
“You ask me where China's technological progress is coming from. It's coming from terrific entrepreneurs who are getting the benefit of huge government investments in basic science. It's coming from an educational system that's privileging excellence, concentrating on science and technology,” said Summers, former Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and an ex-economic advisor to Barack Obama. “That's where their leadership is coming from, not from taking a stake in some U.S. company.”
Crime rate for illegal aliens is difficult to quantify but is much higher than for US citizens
For example, 14% of federal prisoners are illegal aliens but come from just 3-6% of the US population.
More than half of burglaries in border states are committed by illegal aliens.
Kris Kobach has more, here.
That idiot Republican Judd Gregg of New Hampshire thinks Woodrow Wilson changed America for the better
He's also the idiot who wrote the TARP bailout.
And now he's the idiot who blames the Baby Boom for the programs bankrupting America: Social Security and Medicare, which pre-date it and were passed by spendthrift Democrats.
Here.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
In 2011 Peter Fonda made thinly veiled threats against Obama
So the recent tweet against Barron Trump just shows the guy's a chronic violent crank who should have been charged for inciting violence years ago.
The guy is poison.
Edward Snowden documents help The Intercept identify eight AT&T buildings central to NSA spying on global internet, phone, email, chat
From the story here:
THE EIGHT LOCATIONS are featured on a top-secret NSA map, which depicts U.S. facilities that the agency relies upon for one of its largest surveillance programs, code-named FAIRVIEW. AT&T is the only company involved in FAIRVIEW, which was first established in 1985, according to NSA documents, and involves tapping into international telecommunications cables, routers, and switches.
In 2003, the NSA launched new internet mass surveillance methods, which were pioneered under the FAIRVIEW program. The methods were used by the agency to collect – within a few months – some 400 billion records about people’s internet communications and activity, the New York Times previously reported. FAIRVIEW was also forwarding more than 1 million emails every day to a “keyword selection system” at the NSA’s Fort Meade headquarters.
Central to the internet spying are eight “peering link router complex” sites, which are pinpointed on the top-secret NSA map. The locations of the sites mirror maps of AT&T’s networks, obtained by The Intercept from public records, which show “backbone node with peering” facilities in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
One of the AT&T maps contains unique codes individually identifying the addresses of the facilities in each of the cities.
Among the pinpointed buildings, there is a nuclear blast-resistant, windowless facility in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood; in Washington, D.C., a fortress-like, concrete structure less than half a mile south of the U.S. Capitol; in Chicago, an earthquake-resistant skyscraper in the West Loop Gate area; in Atlanta, a 429-foot art deco structure in the heart of the city’s downtown district; and in Dallas, a cube-like building with narrow windows and large vents on its exterior, located in the Old East district.
Elsewhere, on the west coast of the U.S., there are three more facilities: in downtown Los Angeles, a striking concrete tower near the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Staples Center, two blocks from the most important internet exchange in the region; in Seattle, a 15-story building with blacked-out windows and reinforced concrete foundations, near the city’s waterfront; and in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, a building where it was previously claimed that the NSA was monitoring internet traffic from a secure room on the sixth floor.
The peering sites – otherwise known in AT&T parlance as “Service Node Routing Complexes,” or SNRCs – were developed following the internet boom in the mid- to late 1990s. By March 2009, the NSA’s documents say it was tapping into “peering circuits at the eight SNRCs.”
Supremes rule in favor of Trump in Trump v. Hawaii
Ha ha.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of President Donald Trump in Trump v. Hawaii, the controversial case regarding Trump's September order to restrict travel to the U.S. for citizens of several majority Muslim countries. In the 5-4 opinion penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court found that Trump's immigration restriction fell "squarely" within the president's authority. The court rejected claims that the ban was motivated by religious hostility.
Read the whole thing here.
Monday, June 25, 2018
The Trump administration doesn't get it that the Chinese trade system is a strategic threat
And neither does the Politico story excerpted below. China faces an unpredictable foe in Trump and his tariff threats, but China is playing the long game of imperial expansion and domination and only seeks a path navigating through what it knows is the temporary and incoherent threat Trump represents. Trump does not bring a fundamental rethinking of China. Once he is gone the US trade stance will return, unfortunately, to the status quo ante, continuing the hollowing out of the West by enriching a few who sell these communist liars and thieves the rope they'll use to hang the rest of us.
From the story here:
The administration in May said it wanted China to commit to reducing the trade deficit by $200 billion by 2020. It also asked China to stop subsidizing high-tech sectors like robotics and alternative energy vehicles identified in its China’s strategic economic plan, cut tariffs on “all products in non-critical sectors” to levels at or below U.S. duties and assure that it would not challenge U.S. actions taken in intellectual property disputes.
Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s chief [trade] negotiator, said at the time that it wasn’t his goal to “change the Chinese system,” despite his long list of criticisms of that system.
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Friday, June 22, 2018
GitHub and Medium take down ICE database and story, Wikileaks publishes it
From the story here:
In this case, WikiLeaks appears to have reproduced a project created by a New York-based artist and programmer named Sam Lavigne, who has taught as an adjunct instructor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and The New School's Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts.
Poster child for "separations" on cover of TIME never separated from her mother, came to US against the will of Honduran father
From the story here:
He revealed that his wife had previously mentioned her wish to go to the United States for a 'better future' but did not tell him nor any of their family members that she was planning to make the trek.
'I didn't support it. I asked her, why? Why would she want to put our little girl through that? But it was her decision at the end of the day.'
He said that Sandra had always wanted to experience 'the American dream' and hoped to find a good job in the States.
Denis, who works as a captain at a port on the coast of Puerto Cortes, explained that things back home were fine but not great, and that his wife was seeking political asylum.
He said that Sandra set out on the 1,800-mile journey with the baby girl on June 3, at 6am, and he has not heard from her since.
'I never got the chance to say goodbye to my daughter and now all I can do is wait', he said, adding that he hopes they are either granted political asylum or are sent back home.
'I don't have any resentment for my wife, but I do think it was irresponsible of her to take the baby with her in her arms because we don't know what could happen.'
The couple has three other children, son Wesly, 14, and daughters Cindy, 11, and Brianna, six.
'The kids see what's happening. They're a little worried but I don't try to bring it up that much. They know their mother and sister are safe now.'
Denis said that he believes the journey across the border is only worth it to some degree, and admits that it's not something he would ever consider.
He said he heard from friends that his wife paid $6,000 for a coyote - a term for someone who smuggles people across the border.
'I wouldn't risk my life for it. It's hard to find a good job here and that's why many people choose to leave. But I thank God that I have a good job here. And I would never risk my life making that journey.'
Congressional threats to DOJ for 1.2 million documents subpoenaed three months ago yield materials this week
From the story here:
"A small cache of documents was given to intelligence panel staff on Tuesday, followed by another tranche on Wednesday, a congressional source told the Washington Examiner."
Expect more excuses for why everything hasn't been provided by today.
The DOJ under Trump has been slow-walking and stonewalling just like every department under Obama did during his administration's attempts to thwart Congressional oversight.
The Swamp.
Michael Daniel testimony to Senate: Obama administration (Susan Rice) ordered him to stand down in Russian hacking investigation in summer 2016
The story here says
"The view that the Obama administration failed to adequately piece together intelligence about the Russian campaign and develop a forceful response has clearly gained traction with the intelligence committee."
No shit.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Flashback: There's government indifference to your problems, and then there's Obama's indifference to your problems
The New York Times, March 8, 2009, just as Mr. Market was tanking, the discount window was lending trillion$, and millions of Americans were losing their homes, here:
"Well, I just think it’s clear by the time we got here, there already had been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system. And the thing I constantly try to emphasize to people if that coming in, the market was doing fine, nobody would be happier than me to stay out of it. I have more than enough to do without having to worry the financial system. The fact that we’ve had to take these extraordinary measures and intervene is not an indication of my ideological preference, but an indication of the degree to which lax regulation and extravagant risk taking has precipitated a crisis."
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Separating families is nothing new, has been policy since the Bush administration in 2005
From the Senate Judiciary Committee, here:
As a matter of procedure and policy, border agents routinely separate family members, including intentionally, as punishment—or “consequences”—through what DHS calls its Consequence Delivery System (CDS). These consequences are meant to deter future migration, often regardless of international protection or other humanitarian concerns. The CDS has been implemented systematically since 2005. ... [M]any parents and children arriving at the border and seeking asylum are subject to CDS to punish them for their flight to the United States. Deterring future migration is prioritized over concern for protection, access to justice, and family unity.
JP Morgan: US tariffs on China to have only modest impact on US economy
From the story here:
Investment bank JPMorgan estimated in a report on Tuesday that Trump’s tariffs on China would have only modest effects on the broader U.S. economy. It based its analysis on a 12 percent average U.S. tariff on $450 billion of imports from China, estimating that this would add just 0.4 percentage points to U.S. consumer price inflation if the additional costs of the duties were passed on to consumers in their entirety.
IG report did say there was bias while testimony of Horowitz and FBI's Wray contort this to no bias
But we live in an age where characterization matters more, saying something is such and so when it isn't.
Documented here by Sharyl Attkisson:
The IG report is rife with examples of bias, even if Horowitz hadn't explicitly said so. (But he did.)
Andrew McCarthy: IG report simply ignored the offence of the Hillary private server set up
Here:
[T]heir analysis left out the best intent evidence, namely, Clinton’s willful setting up of a private, non-secure server system for all official business.
Manufactured crisis of child separations: Both Bush and Obama separated families by the hundreds of thousands
And there are lots of photos, here.
The "crisis" is being used to move poor legislation, and the president is its easy mark:
Representative Mark Meadows said Trump told Republican members of the House at a meeting on Capitol Hill that they needed to get something done on immigration "right away."
This is why conservative temperament matters: It isn't manipulated easily or hastily. Unfortunately Trump has no such temperament.
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Hillary in 2014: "Just because your child gets across the border that doesn't mean your child gets to stay"
YouTube, here.
But now:
If it's a central tenet, you would think she could quote it correctly. Hillary means this about as much as she meant what she said four years ago.
Ehhhh ... puto! In the race for most fines for anti-gay slurs, Hispanic soccer fans have everyone else beat
Well, Spain was ruled by Muslims from 711 to 1492 AD.
From the story here:
Homophobia and homophobic chants are not exclusive to Mexico fans.
Fifa issued 51 disciplinary actions over homophobia during 2018 World Cup
qualifiers. Of these, 11 were handed to the Mexican federation, with
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Peru also
receiving multiple fines. Fifa additionally cited Colombia, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Greece, Hungary and Serbia once each for
homophobic chants.
But there is no doubt the chant is most prominent among Mexico fans.
“To call your opponent homosexual is definitely along a spectrum of
machismo, whereby your opponent is weaker – less masculine,” says Joshua
Nadel, author of Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America.
Free movement of peoples from foreign lands, a key tenet of libertarianism, is an ideology of Western suicide
Pat Buchanan, here, except he doesn't mention that's libertarianism (Pat defaults to "liberal democracy").
I can't think of a single public figure, except (maybe) Ann Coulter, to have made the explicit connection.
The real enemy is the ideological habit of mind, not the specific ideology per se. Its most characteristic failing is its inability to face reality, in all its intractability, but more than that, its revolt against reality. In its rage against the ugly facts of life which refuse to conform to its theories, libertarianism recoils and withdraws to the imagined safety of its gated communities, drawing up the bridge over the moat it has built around its citadels.
The worst ideologies until now have been armed and totalitarian. The current libertarian one, however, is just as deadly. Instead of actively killing people in the streets, it just stands by watching the video, when it's not making it.
Monday, June 18, 2018
Trump reestablishes the right tone about the US in space, recommits to exploring and taming the new frontier
Quoted here:
"My administration is reclaiming America's heritage as the world's greatest spacefaring nation," Trump said in the East Room, joined by members of his space council. "The essence of the American character is to explore new horizons and to tame new frontiers."
China accused of imposing exit bans on American citizens
From the story here:
It’s difficult to know exactly how many U.S. citizens have been affected. The State Department declined to confirm the number of cases, citing privacy concerns, but [John] Kamm said he knows of about two dozen cases over the past year and half alone.
“One of the problems with exit bans is that you don’t know that there is an exit ban on you until you actually get to the airport,” said Kamm. “There may be people in the country who have exit bans on them and they don’t know it.”
Sunday, June 17, 2018
By surviving past May 30 and not resigning, John McCain has insured there will be no election for his seat until 2020
When he dies, as he surely will, the governor of Arizona is obligated to appoint a Republican to fill out the remainder of his term.
Another man might have given Arizona voters what they deserve under the circumstances, a fully-capable senator whom they themselves elected, but that man is not John McCain.
Democracy for me, but not for thee.
The story is here.
Edit:
Of course, not resigning but sequestering in Arizona for medical reasons brings a twofer: He stymies the advance of the Trump agenda in the Senate where the votes are razor-thin even when he's there. This makes the likelihood of success for "moderate" alliances between liberal Republicans and Democrates in the Senate even greater.
Edit:
Of course, not resigning but sequestering in Arizona for medical reasons brings a twofer: He stymies the advance of the Trump agenda in the Senate where the votes are razor-thin even when he's there. This makes the likelihood of success for "moderate" alliances between liberal Republicans and Democrates in the Senate even greater.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Trump's National Guardsmen at the border are busy shoveling horseshit and changing flat tires, not running razor wire
Way to go, Brownie!
Politico has the story here:
[I]n one assignment, soldiers are actually feeding and shoveling out manure from the stalls of the Border Patrol’s horses. ... Other soldiers, like Sgt. Jonathan Sanchez, 35, a cook, are performing maintenance on the Border Patrol’s heavily used vehicles. “We fix flats,” he explained on a steamy afternoon after completing his shift in the motor pool a few miles north of town. ... A few National Guard helicopters and crew have also been enlisted to join the Border Patrol fleet for aerial surveillance, but more troops are clearing vegetation, serving as office clerks and making basic repairs to Border Patrol facilities.
Fake economic boom: Industrial Production went negative in May 2018
Compared to the 1950s, this economy might as well be sleeping.
Maybe more to the point, when did Strzok and Page have any time to do any actual work for the FBI?
If there are 16 waking hours in the day, they were texting each other during them every 6.6 minutes for 17 months straight!
The FBI should ask for its money back.
The FBI should ask for its money back.
The evil Robert Mueller has just separated Paul Manafort from his family
By sending him to jail.
Something about witness tampering.
You know, like Robert Mueller does every day with his inexhaustible supply of government money and time to intimidate, bully and bankrupt defenseless American citizens until they tell him what he wants to hear.
Reunite all the detained illegal aliens with their families
Back in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua . . ..
They have to go back.
Did Trump voters in 2016 vote for a huge corporate tax cut, war with North Korea, and a DACA amnesty?
I watched all the rallies and never heard about these things.
The enthusiasm was all for The Wall, a symbol of the out of control immigration problems facing the country, of which we haven't gotten one inch 19 months later. We could have had 2000 miles of razor-wire by now, but for that you'll need Hungarians apparently, not Americans.
The secondary enthusiasms were for jobs and an end to Obamacare, which have been half-heartedly addressed, not in the least because rank and file Republicans are about business as usual, i.e. keeping their jobs. We still have 16.1 million total unemployed in May 2018, and (unusable) privately purchased health insurance premiums going through the roof.
They don't give a damn about us or what we need, except at election time.
I'm voting in the primaries against incumbents where possible, and third party (but no libertarians) in the general. Otherwise it'll be for Mickey Mouse, Dopey and Goofy, but never again for these fools. The cartoon variety would be an improvement.
Julius Malema wants white people dead, views China as model for South African communism
Istanbul-based TRT World reports here:
[H]e once said the EFF [Economic Freedom Fighters party] was not calling for the white genocide “yet.” ... “This inequality, which is growing, which the gap is widening and racially based – blacks becoming more poorer and whites becoming more richer is not sustainable,” Malema explained, warning it would lead to “loss of life”. “So I am saying to you, not under my leadership will we call for the slaughter of white people. I don't know who is coming after me, I will not speak for them.” Nevertheless, he is adamant about the racism that he says is still prevalent in South African society today. “They (white people) hate the idea of equality. That irritates them. That a monkey can never be equal to a white man,” he said. “White people are scared of equality. They don't want it because equality is a threat to privilege.” ...
Malema says China is still a “model” for nations that want to take up the socialist cause and that they are in the process of getting there. “They (the Chinese) have never abandoned the strategic vision and mission of the Communist Party.”
Friday, June 15, 2018
Ann Coulter: The rich are like sharks, all appetite and no brains
Here:
Trump thought North Korea was hard? With immigration, we have all of the most influential forces in our culture on the same page. Immigration is a great unifier of the rich and powerful.
The rich are like sharks -- all appetite, no brain. With their cheap labor voting 7-3 for the Democrats, it won't be long until Democrats have a lock on government. What do you think they'll do then, Business Roundtable? Answer: Make it impossible to do business. Google "California."
With the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the Koch brothers' incessant lobbying for more and more cheap labor, we see exactly what Lenin said about the capitalists: They will sell us the rope with which to hang them.
The rich don't care. They can't think beyond next quarter's earnings.
Inspector General's report reveals several FBI agents politically motivated to act vs. Trump in their official capacity
You can bet any documentary evidence was destroyed long ago by these foxes put in charge of guarding the hen house. The FBI rogues are laughing at this report.
From the story here:
The Justice Department inspector general has referred five FBI employees for investigation in connection with politically charged texts, revealing in its report on the Hillary Clinton email case that more bureau officials than previously thought were exchanging anti-Trump messages. ...
The report noted that it was specifically concerned about text messages exchanged between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that “potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.” ...
[T]he IG report revealed a new one in which Strzok vowed to "stop" Trump from becoming president -- and made clear that as many as five total FBI employees exchanged politically charged messages. "The text messages and instant messages sent by these employees included statements of hostility toward then candidate Trump and statements of support for candidate Clinton," the report said. ...
The report did not, however, find ... "documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions" ... “Nonetheless, these messages cast a cloud over the FBI’s handling of the Midyear investigation [MYE = FBI code for Midyear Exam, aka Hillary Clinton server investigation] and the investigation’s credibility.”
The boom goes bust: "Investment activity is grinding to a full stop for the first time in China's modern history"
Also, "weakest consumer spending since 2003".
And, 46 consecutive months of industrial production at or below 8%, "unprecedented for modern China".
Jeffrey Snider, here.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Australian snowflakes in Afghanistan see a Nazi flag, fear PTSD or something
Obviously it was a false flag operation. The Aussies were just trying to have a little fun and convince the Taliban they were friendlies.
Fake news: Drudge contributes to the false boom narrative
Drudge links to a Zero Hedge story, which doesn't use the word "boom". But Zero Hedge doesn't get it right, either. It calls the May 0.8% monthly percentage "surge" in retail sales "the biggest since January 2017" absent the hurricane surge in September 2017. Not true: The actual 0.76% spike in May 2018 was bested by November 2017 at 0.79%. They both round to 0.8%.
But was the 0.8% significant? The only way to know is to look at what has happened in May in the past, and from that we conclude that May 2018 was obviously up but unremarkably so. We did better in May 2008 and 2009 for crying out loud, in the middle of a deep recession, which just proves it takes a while to get people's attention, even after you beat them in the head with a 2 X 4, multiple times.
The bottom line is retail is struggling over the long haul. The trend isn't up even a full half point after 18 years.
Expect Rush Limbaugh to trumpet the fake news nonetheless.
Here's an extreme he hasn't thought of: Maybe try paying more than "above minimum wage"
The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, but low-skilled jobs in Michigan start at $10.00 an hour, and pay even higher than that for competent, dependable people. The median wage for a production operator for a local company near me situated here just across the lake from the one in Manitowoc mentioned in the story below commands $13.57 an hour.
From the story here:
Mike Fredrich shows off unmanned presses in his Manitowoc, Wisconsin, company. They're ready to start production at MCM Composites, a 55-person enterprise that makes custom thermoset molding. The only problem? Fredrich has no one to operate them. "These tools are heated to 300 degrees," he said. "But we're not running them. Had we had the people for the first shift, we could have been running this all day. But we don't, so they sit here heated, ready to go, with no action." Fredrich said the business has gone to extremes to try to find the 15 additional employees it needs. But he's had little success.
"There are no workers, but there's a huge demand. The economy has picked up, but the market is so thin, that we just can't find them. We've gone to extraordinary means to find people that will actually work, including going to the local county jail and recruiting people to work from inside the jail," Fredrich said. ...
Fredrich is also looking for a core staff of his own — low-skilled laborers he's willing to train and pay above minimum wage. "What they need to be able to do is come to work on time every day, pay attention to what they're doing, take instruction well, and just put in an honest day's work," he said.
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Trump may have kept the issue of US troops in South Korea separate from the North Korea talks, but he still wants them out
Removing US troops from the peninsula will only give China what it wants. A robust US presence in South Korea, Japan and Guam helps ensure the security of Taiwan, not simply the security of South Korea. The end game is Taiwan. Trump is misguided to think otherwise.
Quoted here before 6:30 this morning:
“I want to bring our soldiers back home,” Trump said, although he added that it’s “not part of the equation right now.” Then he said: “We will be stopping the war games, which will save us a tremendous amount of money unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should. But we’ll be saving a tremendous amount of money. Plus, I think it’s very provocative.”
Trump's determination eventually to remove US troops from South Korea isn't what the South wants or the North demands
From the story here in early May:
The South Korean government reiterated this week that the troops were still needed and would not be pulled out as a result of a peace treaty with North Korea. ...
Mr. Kim recently declared, through South Korean officials, that he would drop the North’s longstanding insistence that American troops leave the peninsula. Some experts argue that watching American soldiers depart is far less important to him than winning relief from economic sanctions.
The Clapperism Laugh of the Day: FBI seizes reporter's records in order to protect her
Unnamed sources say the records were suspected to be highly toxic weapons of mass destruction.
Monday, June 11, 2018
Slow wage growth remains a mystery to economist Noah Smith
Here.
And they call economics a science.
It's not a mystery if you question your presuppositions, for example that the economy is strong, and that the unemployment rate tells you something meaningful. But that might be too much to ask of an economist.
Strong growth is relative. Economic growth in the post-war began with a big bang and has been cooling off ever since. Compared to the beginning, we're half as robust today. So the economy is not strong, just operating in concert with inertia.
The unemployment rate is very low, but only because so many people have dropped out of the labor force at the same time that the slowest jobs recovery in the post-war has occurred. The low unemployment rate is an artifact of this concurrence.
Presently there are over 16 million people unemployed, underemployed, and not in the labor force who want to work. That's why wages aren't growing. We're still flush with labor, and business knows it.
You can be replaced.
And they call economics a science.
It's not a mystery if you question your presuppositions, for example that the economy is strong, and that the unemployment rate tells you something meaningful. But that might be too much to ask of an economist.
Strong growth is relative. Economic growth in the post-war began with a big bang and has been cooling off ever since. Compared to the beginning, we're half as robust today. So the economy is not strong, just operating in concert with inertia.
The unemployment rate is very low, but only because so many people have dropped out of the labor force at the same time that the slowest jobs recovery in the post-war has occurred. The low unemployment rate is an artifact of this concurrence.
Presently there are over 16 million people unemployed, underemployed, and not in the labor force who want to work. That's why wages aren't growing. We're still flush with labor, and business knows it.
You can be replaced.
Republican corporate tax cuts = record stock buybacks in May 2018 = corporate insiders selling to profit BIGLY
From the story, "Corporate executives are using stock buybacks to pad their own compensation, according to the SEC", here:
Indeed, buybacks totaled $178 billion during the first quarter, hit a record $171.3 billion in May alone and have seen $51.1 billion announced so far in June, according to market data firm TrimTabs. At the same time, insider selling has totaled $23.6 billion.
Meanwhile Challenger, Gray & Christmas reports total hirings in the first five months of 2018 are down 48% from the first five months of 2017.
The Republican tax cuts are working out as predicted: Failing to provide jobs while enriching elites.
Texas alone has 251,000 criminal aliens who aren't good people, committing 663,000 serious crimes since 2011
From the story here:
According to the DHS and the Texas Department of Public Safety, over 251,000 criminal aliens have been booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011, and April 30, 2018. They have been charged for a total of 663,000 offenses including:
1,351 homicides;
7,156 sexual assaults;
9,938 weapons charges;
79,049 assaults;
18,685 burglaries;
79,900 drug charges;
815 kidnappings;
44,882 thefts;
4,292 robberies.
The Answer: Because they are slaves
The Question: Why middle-aged women with kids make the best employees
"... the group that is most discriminated against when it comes to jobs."
Reihan Salam: Permanent normal trade relations with China fostered its tyranny
Well duh. We sell them the rope to hang us with, but first they hang their own.
From the story in The Atlantic, here:
What might the world have looked like had the U.S. never granted PNTR to China? One possibility is that China would have pursued an economic strategy built around fostering indigenous entrepreneurship and bettering the lives of its own workers, as it did in the 1980s. Instead, Beijing chose to transfer wealth from ordinary Chinese citizens to its politically powerful export sector, a path made possible by PNTR. China might very well have become just as rich by embracing a more balanced and humane approach to development. Doing so, however, would have required that its central government surrender a measure of control to its citizens. Rather than foster liberalism and openness in China, I suspect PNTR did exactly the opposite—creating the conditions for China’s central government to exert tighter control over the Chinese populace.
Sunday, June 10, 2018
Funny how Enlightened England became hostile to American Presbyterianism, and so ruined itself
The ruin of a state is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners, and contempt of religion, which is entirely our case at present.
-- Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Buzzfeed attacks Disqus for its alt-right hangouts
The marginalization war continues, and the herding instincts of the targets makes them easy prey. The irony of their ghettoization is lost on them.
Here:
A number of pro-white and alt-right users have created their own bloglike communities inside Disqus’s platform in order to share stories, comment, and coordinate influence trolling campaigns (which the trolls dub “raids”). One channel called Mickey’s Clubhouse — whose popular topics include Jews, Holohoax, Censorship, White Genocide, and Jew World Order — appears to be home to a number of users coordinating the infiltration of comment sections on Breitbart and other conservative publications. The goal, as evidenced by their comments, is to flood conservative-leaning publishers with pro-white and anti-Semitic content in order to win hearts and minds and indoctrinate others to their politics.
Jim Goad's just upset because readership at takimag has dropped off a cliff
Like Rush Limbaugh, he blames his base:
'I’d like to cheerfully suggest that you take that finger you’re always pointing at others and stick it up your ass. With the way you’re always talking about “degenerates,” you’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?'
Saturday, June 9, 2018
SECDEF Mattis explicitly states US troops in South Korea are not a bargaining chip in North Korea denuclearization talks
Quoted here:
However, Defense Secretary James Mattis said recently at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that any discussion about U.S. military presence in South Korea will be "separate and distinct" from the negotiations with Pyongyang.
"That issue will not come up in the discussions with [North Korea] and as you all recognize; those troops are there as a recognition of a security challenge," Mattis said.
Friday, June 8, 2018
Just 16% of junior US Navy officers completely competent at ship-handling
But I'll bet the rest know everything there is to know about equality between the sexes and sexual preference.
The story is here.
More US Navy shame, more proof China's our enemy: Chicoms successfully hack 614 gigabytes of highly sensitive data from contractor
WaPo reports here:
Chinese government hackers have compromised the computers of a Navy contractor, stealing massive amounts of highly sensitive data related to undersea warfare — including secret plans to develop a supersonic anti-ship missile for use on U.S. submarines by 2020, according to American officials. ...
In September 2015, in a bid to avert economic sanctions, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to President Barack Obama that China would refrain from conducting commercial cyberespionage against the United States. Following the pact, China appeared to have curtailed much, although not all, of its hacking activity against U.S. firms, including by the People’s Liberation Army. Both China and the United States consider spying on military technology to fall outside the pact.
For failure to understand "not-in-labor-force" it's hard to beat Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King
The only segment of this pie chart which could reasonably be expected to be hiding missing labor is the not-working-aged-between-16-and-64.
Trouble is, 37.4 million of the 45.7 million in the group are in high school and college. That leaves 8.3 million from this group who could possibly work, many of whom are homemakers,the idle rich, people who have just given up finding a job, volunteers, etc. The government says only 5.2 million of them in May 2018 "want a job now".
The idea that we should think about putting old people and the disabled to work is crazy on its face, while there is something to be said for putting prisoners to work.
Why King isn't rebuking Republicans for wanting to replace Americans with cheap foreign workers ought to be the issue. So-called record job openings go unfilled because they can. The unemployed at 7.2 million plus the 5.2 million represent 12.4 million who would work, if only business paid enough.
Thursday, June 7, 2018
A DACA "fix" is a recipe for more illegal immigration
"Congress itself has been the culprit. ...
Congress continues to refuse to mandate the well-tested and widely-used E-Verify system. The outlaw employers in construction, manufacturing, hospitality and other services, of course, don't use it. Thus, parents worldwide, at this very moment, are enticed to illegally cross borders and overstay their visas while starting their children on the path to the long-term illegal-status life that Dreamers say is untenable. ...
As soon as amnestied illegal immigrants become U.S. citizens, current law allows them to petition for their parents to also obtain lifetime work permits and permanent residency. ...
But in the lifetime of a young Dreamer given an amnesty today, there would likely be time not only to obtain lifetime work permits for the original chain of extended family but for that Dreamer's grandparents (as parents of the Dreamer's parents), aunts and uncles (as siblings of the Dreamer's parents), and cousins (the children of the Dreamer's aunts and uncles).
The chains don't stop there. Every one of those adults could immediately bring their minor children and their spouse. Every spouse can start the same chains in his or her families.
All of them could receive lifetime work permits to compete for jobs with working-age Americans who don’t have a job, nearly one-in-four Americans, according to government data.
That’s the reality of DACA amnesty that Congress needs to face."
As Republicans and Trump prepare legislation granting a DACA amnesty, illegals are swarming the border with Mexico
These idiots are, well, idiots! They're just sending the same old message: If you come, we will let you stay.
Nay, Nay! They cannot stay! Illegal aliens must go away!
From the story, "Illegal immigration rises for third straight month despite Trump crackdown", here:
Total arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border topped 40,000 last month, according to the [DHS], which is used as a benchmark for understanding the level of illegal immigration occurring at the border. ... The crackdown has seemed to have little effect on the overall numbers of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, as the arrest numbers have been steadily climbing since January, though some of the rise can be attributed to regular seasonal workers.
Jan Hatzius is hysterical: Unemployment rate set to move into overheating territory
Quoted here:
"We are still creating a lot more jobs than the long-term trend which we would put at 100,000 (each month), so when you are adding 200,000, that means the unemployment rate is set to move into overheating territory," Hatzius added.
The 62-year trend for total nonfarm (Jan 1939 - Jan 2001) is 138,143 jobs/month. Since 2001 through Jan 2018 we're off that trend by 46%, with a monthly rate of just 74,014 jobs added a month. Go back 18 years from May 2018 to incorporate present-day job-creation and the monthly rate goes up only to 76,597 jobs/month.
For workers, the last 17-18 years have absolutely SUCKED!
Nothing is overheating here except Jan Hatzius.
For him recovering the missing 13 million + jobs since 2001 would be a catastrophe . . . for the profits of Goldman Sachs.
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
We have 16.1 million total unemployed in May 2018, and 16.8 million new legal immigrants since Bush 43 was elected
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