Category: BORDER SECURITY

Jobs Stay Solid: 130,000 Created in August, Wages Up 3.2% Black Unemployment to Record-Low 5.5% Labor Force Participation Rate Still Climbing

CAP

By John Carney

The U.S. economy created 130,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate remained steady at 3.7 percent.

Economists had expected the economy to between 150,000 and 180,000 with the median consensus at 163,000, according to Econoday. Unemployment was expected to remain unchanged. Last month’s jobs figure was originally reported at 164,000, now revised down to 159,000, and unemployment was 3.7 percent.

Although the headline number was weaker than expected, wage growth was strong in August. Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 11 cents to $28.11, or 0.4 percent, following 9-cent gains in both June and July. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.2 percent. In August, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 11 cents to $23.59.

Unemployment among African Americans fell to 5.5 percent, the lowest level on record.

The labor force participation rate edged up to 63.2 percent in August, indicating that the strong labor market has continued to draw Americans into the workforce.

The largest job gains came from professional and business services, which added 37,000.  Census hiring boosted the federal government’s hiring to 28,000 workers. Health care added 24,000 to the total while financial services increased by 15,000.

There were little to no gains in August for construction, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, and leisure and hospitality. Holding the line on manufacturing jobs is a sign of strength given signs that manufacturing activity fell this summer.

The retail sector shed 11,ooo jobs, with department stores losing 15,000 jobs (partially offset by gains in other retail venues). Over the year, so-called “general merchandise” retails jobs have fallen by 80,000.

While the economy continued to grow in the second and third quarter, it has slowed from the rapid 3.1 percent rate of growth in the first three months of the year. Manufacturing appears to have contracted and business investment has been weak, with surveys indicating that uncertainty around trade policy and global economic weakness have become a drag on the U.S.

Consumer spending and the labor market have been strong. Data released Thursday showed worker compensation rising strongly and well-above inflation. Rising labor costs can promote capital investment by businesses seeking to make workers more productive.
With unemployment near 50-year lows, job growth has slowed and many businesses say they are having trouble hiring. Employment growth has averaged 158,000 per month thus far this year, compared with an average monthly gain of 223,000 in 2018.

 

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Pennsylvania Fire Company Shut Down After Refusing to Fire a Volunteer Firefighter Who Joined the Proud Boys

by Cassandra Fairbanks September 5, 2019

A fire company in Pennsylvania has been shut down for refusing to fire or accept the resignation of a volunteer firefighter who had started the process of joining the Proud Boys.

The Proud Boys, founded by comedian Gavin McInnes, is a diverse right-wing and pro-Trump social club for men.

Haverford Township announced in a statement on Wednesday saying that they are shutting down the Bon Air Fire Company “indefinitely” for failing to remove Bruce McClay Jr. as a volunteer.

“Given the fire company board’s failure to act, the township is compelled to take action,” the township said in a statement. “Effective by close of business Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019, the Bon Air Fire Company has been relieved of duty indefinitely.”

Steve D’Emilio, Ward 1 commissioner in Haverford, told the Philadelphia Enquirer that the Proud Boys are a “hate group” so he clearly can’t be allowed to help save people from fires.

“Listen, they represent the township,” he said. “Even though they’re a volunteer group, they represent the township. And you can’t have someone who represents the township belonging to any hate groups. You can’t have it.”

The Enquirer reports:

“On Aug. 14, Burman’s letter states, he and the chief of police met with Bon Air officials to make them aware of the seriousness of the issue and urge them to address it. And on Aug. 15, the letter continues, Burman was told by Bon Air that McClay had tried to resign, but that the company declined to accept his resignation.

On Aug. 22, fire company officials told the township they ‘found no basis’ for dismissing the volunteer.

On the Bon Air website, McClay is listed as a lieutenant and vice president of the board of directors.”

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PETE BUTTIGIEG: IF YOU USE STRAWS OR EAT BURGERS, YOU’RE “PART OF THE PROBLEM”

Pete Buttigieg: If You Use Straws or Eat Burgers, You're "Part of The Problem"

Dem presidential hopeful guilt trips millions of Americans

  – SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

In an interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on Thursday, Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg criticized Americans who use straws or eat hamburgers, saying they’re “part of the problem.”

In the beginning of the video, Camerota claimed she hasn’t used a plastic straw in six months because she’s “so worried about what’s happening in the ocean.”

She then asked Buttigieg what people can do to not feel so helpless in the face of something so existential.

“It’s not only about all of the things we’ve got to do technologically and with regulation and so on, it’s about summoning the energies of this country to do something unbelievably hard,” he replied.

By saying we’ve got to use regulations to battle climate change, Mayor Pete is admitting he’d use government mandates to go after plastic straw users and meat-eaters.

Continuing, Buttigieg said, “See, right now, we’re in a mode where I think we’re thinking about it mostly through the perspective of guilt. You know, from using a straw, to eating a burger, ‘am I part of the problem?’ and in a certain way, yes, but the most exciting thing is that we can all be part of the solution.”

So, he says Americans are viewing the issue of climate change “through the perspective of guilt,” and then tells people who eat burgers and use straws they’re “a part of the problem” in the next sentence.

This is one more example of Democrat politicians putting Americans through a guilt trip in order to further their political agenda.

For example, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has shamed New Yorkers for eating too many hot dogs and vows to reduce the city’s processed meat consumption.

Kaitlin Bennett asks New Yorkers if they want to ban hot dogs.

Shockingly, they are okay with Mayor De Blasio’s initiative to ban wieners.

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Big Tech & Big Brother meet at Facebook HQ to discuss how to ‘secure’ US elections

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Security teams for Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft met with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence’s office to coordinate a strategy to secure the 2020 elections.

The tech platforms met with government officials at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters on Wednesday, the company has confirmed, boasting that Big Tech and Big Brother have developed a “comprehensive strategy” to get control of previous election-related “vulnerabilities” while “analyzing and getting ahead of new threats.”

Facebook has scrambled to get in front of the 2020 election after being blamed for Trump’s 2016 electoral victory over merely allowing the “Russian trolls” to buy a bunch of ads, most of which appeared after the vote and had nothing to do with the election. But the company insisted last week it had tightened its rules for verifying purchasers of “political” ads, for real this time, after the 2018 contest showed they could still be duped into running obviously-fake ads “paid for by” the Islamic State terror group and Cambridge Analytica.

Big election business: Democratic candidates, even critical of Facebook, pour millions into platform

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Aside from the occasional purge of accounts accused of being linked to countries like Russia, Iran, and China on the US’ ever-lengthening enemies’ list, however, it’s hard to tell what exactly any platform has done to make itself immune to ‘manipulation’. Twitter banned state-owned media from buying ads on its platform last month, holding the move up as a victory against the dreaded “foreign meddling,” but its own founder’s account was hacked last week, suggesting it has bigger security issues than a few wrongthink-prone advertisers.

And Google’s potential to sway elections has been the subject of Senate hearings – yet the company has remained silent on addressing the problem, suggesting it doesn’t see it as a bug at all, but a feature. Subsidiary YouTube, meanwhile, conducted another round of deplatforming last month even while declaring it was an open platform for controversial ideas.

The electoral meeting of the minds came less than a week after the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) declared war on deepfakes and other potentially discord-sowing information, promising to neutralize all “malicious” content within four years – if not for this election, then certainly for the next.

Until then, there’s Microsoft’s ElectionGuard software, which the company announced in July it would provide to all the nation’s voting machines, free of charge, out of the goodness of its (and the Pentagon-owned contractor that helped develop the program’s) heart. And if Microsoft’s act of selfless charity doesn’t convince a district their democracy is worth protecting, there’s always Cyberdome, the election security nonprofit advised by half a dozen former intel agency heads who want what’s best for your vote (when they’re not authorizing torture or warrantless wiretapping).

Getting the DHS involved was a nice touch, too, after that agency was accused of attempting to hack electoral systems in multiple states thousands of times during the period surrounding the 2016 election. Unlike the “Russian hacking” allegations that remain unproven, multiple officials from Idaho, Georgia, Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky claim the agency attempted to access their systems after they opposed its efforts to “secure” those systems. After initially denying any involvement, the DHS claimed the attempted breach alarms were set off accidentally, during routine “legitimate work.”

 

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Climate Endgame: ‘Curb Population Growth’ to Save the Beach Houses Bernie: America Should Do More to Export Abortion

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by Hannah Bleau

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told CNN’s climate change town hall attendees Wednesday night that he is willing to talk about population control, suggesting that abortion is key to addressing the climate crisis.

“Human population growth has more than doubled in the last 50 years,” an attendee told Sanders, adding that the planet cannot sustain such growth.

“I realize this is a poisonous topic for politicians but it’s crucial to face. Empowering women and educating everyone on the need to curb population growth seems a reasonable campaign to enact,” the attendee continued.

“Would you be courageous enough to discuss this issue and make it a key feature of a plan to address climate catastrophe?” she asked.

“The answer is yes,” Sanders said, arguing that population control – in the form of abortion and birth control, specifically – is something he “very, very strongly” supports.

“The answer has everything to do with the fact that women in the United States of America, by the way, have a right to control their own bodies and make reproductive decisions,” Sanders said.

“And the Mexico City agreement, which denies American aid to those organizations around the world that are – that allow women to have abortions or even get involved in birth control is totally absurd,” he continued.

“So I think especially in poor countries around the world, where women do not necessarily want to have large numbers of babies and where they can have the opportunity to birth control to control the number of kids they have is something I very, very strongly support,” he added.

 

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IF THEY COULD THEY PUT US ALL IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS – Liberal Snowflake Melts Down after Man in Trump 2020 T-Shirt Walks into a Traders Joe’s — So Upset She Writes Letter to Editor

Annotation 2019-09-04 145559

By Jim Hoft

Cheryl Boyles is a liberal activist and writer from Green Valley, Arizona.

In August Boyles went with her husband to a Trader Joe’s and she suffered a severe meltdown after a Trump supporter entered the store in a Trump 2020 T-shirt.

Cheryl started panicking.  She said the entire mood of the store “shifted.”

Cheryl was so traumatized by the experience that she wrote the local paper to share her horrific story.

This was posted in the Green Valley News in August.

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Boyles even asked their cashier to convey to the management the anxiety she and her husband experienced at “suddenly finding ourselves in a confined space with a man who looked the part of a typical Trump terrorist.”

This crazy woman suffered a major anxiety attack from a Trump T-shirt.

What a nut!

The Green Valley News later reported that they printed 24 letters to the editor, all destroying Cheryl’s overwrought description of a visit to Trader Joe’s in Tucson where she was reduced to, well, snowflake status.  The paper received 50 letters to the editor.  The good news is that not one single letter supported this local nutcase.  

Hopefully Cheryl will get some medication for her severe TDS – Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Hat Tip Emmett

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