The Jobs Report
The good news in the report – unemployment was down to 4.8%.
That’s close to everyone wanting a job has one.
We only created 194,000 jobs last month. So how did the rate go down?
Well 183,000 people left the workforce or stopped looking. Why? There’s almost 10 million open jobs available so its unlikely they stopped looking.
Also, there are 5 million fewer jobs now than before the Covid.
And, only 61.6% are in the workforce. Where are the workers?
So the question, do we need more benefits for people not working, or more people working? The answer seems obvious to me, but leaders in Washington DC see it differently.
The Debt Deal
There was plenty of drama as this deal was reached and even more after it was announced.
Senator McConnell backed down and allowed the debt ceiling to be raised until later this year.
Many of his party reacted as if he had caved forever.
He just moved the date, the problem is still real and a quarter away.
Then Senator Schumer went to the floor and harshly criticized Republicans for provoking the crisis!
It was the wrong message.
All it did was harden positions for the opposition for the next discussion and brought reactions from his own party.
Schumer felt he won this round in his battle with McConnell, and he wanted to make sure everyone knew it. That is not leadership.
Republicans — and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — didn’t like the tone of Schumer’s remarks.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune complained personally to Schumer on the floor, while Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) complained to reporters.
Manchin told Schumer the speech was “fucking stupid,” according to four sources. Then Manchin complained to reporters too.
Schumer should have taken the high road and tried to bring the senate together. Instead he increased tensions and assured future negotiations are tougher.
The legislation raises the nation’s borrowing limit by $480 billion, the amount the Treasury Department says is needed to meet the country’s cash needs until Dec. 3.
Mark that date because it is not going to be pretty.
They Think You Are Dumb
They told us that Hunter Biden’s art sales would be secret to all, so no influence. Okay.
Now read the story about the night.
This from The Daily Mail:
HUNTER BIDEN showcased his art to about 200 people at Milk Studios in Hollywood, Calif. Guests included “World Champion boxer SUGAR RAY LEONARD … Los Angeles Mayor ERIC GARCETTI — President JOE BIDEN’spick to be ambassador to India — and the artist behind BARACK OBAMA’S iconic Hope poster.” Prices ranged between $75k and a half-million dollars.
The White House has said that Hunter won’t know who the buyers of his art are — even though he’s talking with potential buyers face-to-face.
Okay, sure, I get it. Hunter’s straw blow art is worth $500,000. Okay, right.
You can fool some of the people…
What’s A Weekending Report Without A Trump Story?
This from the AP:
A new Senate interim report released asserts through witnesses and documents that former President Trump made an all-out effort to undo November’s presidential election results with help from senior Justice Department officials.
The account from Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats is another in a series of evidentiary findings about the lengths to which the former president and his allies were willing to go to try to overturn a democratically held election in which no evidence of fraud has been uncovered in multiple states, despite GOP searches.
The pressure campaign by Trump, which continued into January, included a draft brief the White House wanted the Justice Department to file with the Supreme Court to overturn the election results. The department refused to file the document, which the Senate report describes as raising a “litany of false and debunked claims.”
The NYT reported further:
Trump reportedly gathered DOJ leaders in the Oval Office on Jan. 3 to discuss his plan to fire acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and install a loyalist, Jeffrey Clark, to help him contest the election. Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and others threatened to quit if Trump went through with his plan.
Now, of course, he is endorsing only candidates that say he was cheated. That is his criteria number one for any 2022 endorsement.
It should be can the person win.
America Is Back
Here’s one more example of a foreign policy that I believe is failing. This from the Washington Times:
Iran’s theocratic regime has ramped up its drone manufacturing operation in recent years and is now smuggling an increasingly sophisticated slate of the weaponized remote control aircraft to allied militant groups around the Middle East, according to intelligence gathered by a leading Iranian dissident group.
Do they do this when we are respected or when they think they can get away with it?