Thursday, October 11, 2018
W-2 payroll data for 2017 just out shows huge slowdown to monthly additions from 2016
Monthly additions dropped from 227,000 (revised up 4,000) in 2016 to 160,000 in 2017 (figures rounded to the nearest thousand).
There were a number of other revisions to the data in this series of more minor significance (incorporated).
Total nonfarm December 2017 on December 2016 was up 182,000 monthly. The civilian employment level was up 149,000 monthly.
You know, Obama didn't follow the so-called Biden Rule in 2016, but Mitch McConnell sure did
You can listen to Biden in 1992, here, when he said Bush should refrain from nominating anyone if a vacancy occurred on the Supreme Court in that election year.
Biden also said the Senate should refrain from holding hearings on any nominee if Bush happened to nominate anyone anyway against this advice.
Well, fellow Democrat Obama ignored the Biden Rule in 2016, an election year, by nominating Garland, which goes little remarked.
But even more little remarked is that the Republican McConnell acted in agreement with the rule in 2016, and refused to conduct hearings on Obama's nominee.
The Executive and the Legislative act as they please in these matters, as is their right. They make their own rules, no matter how much the partisans of this world may try to constrain them.
Elections have consequences.
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Real Clear Politics has Toss-Up seats down to 32 from 43 in the last month
Seats leaning Dem vs. Rep were 205 vs. 198 as of 10-9-18.
Of the 32 Toss-Ups, 11 are Open seats undefended by an incumbent (2 formerly Dem, 9 formerly Rep).
The remaining 21 are defended by Republicans but are too close to call as of 10-9-18. Retaining all those and losing all the Open seats would give Republicans a slim 1-seat majority of 219 to 216.
The damage done to conservatism by Conservatism Inc. is Orwellian
The very essence of conservatism used to be all these things, American culture, history, nation, heritage, family and faith, spokes on the wheel of its organic whole. But the libertarians have co-opted all that away and replaced it with an ideology of materialism which has erased the memory of it to the extent that the two, conservatism and libertarianism, are now indistinguishable in the popular imagination.
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
The "Conservatarians" are as condescending toward Trump voters today as Hillary's voters were yesterday
To Hillary, Trump voters were deplorables.
To conservatarians, Trump voters are the WrestleMania vote, the ignorant gulls who fill Trump's rallies around the country to this day.
Jon Gabriel of Ricochet and Stephen L. Miller count themselves conservatarians, here.
Like Frank Meyer's fusionism which tried to combine libertarianism and traditionalism, conservatarianism also conceives of itself as a libertarian mixture, but with social liberalism not traditionalism.
As such, however, this simply represents the failed status quo, which has been only too happy to use the traditional right at election time since Reagan but otherwise has paid but lip service to it once in power. Its main interest on the one side claims to be fiscal probity, but vainly imagines that its reprobate self even wants smaller deficits. Under Bush 43, debt to the penny soared from $5.7 trillion to $10.7 trillion. In truth, conservatarianism only affects conservatism. Its real interest is in Bacchus.
Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish? -- James 3:11
Nay, nay.
Monday, October 8, 2018
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