Free Republic

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Vegas oddsmakers have set the over/under on its survival at 13-1/2 days. – Donald Trump’s star – which has been destroyed nutjob Democrats twice since 2016, has been restored once again on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Workers reset the star on Saturday in the face of a vote by the West Hollywood City Council in early August to have the star permanently removed. The Walk of Fame, however, is administered by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, whose President, Leron Gubler, had this to say about the matter: “Any star, which is...

Matt Drudge, the founder of the highly influential news site the Drudge Report, trolled Obama in a rare tweet on Friday after the former president crawled out of his hole to trash Trump. Obama gave a speech at the University of Illinois on Friday. He trashed Trump then arrogantly took credit for Trump’s booming economy. The former president kicked off his campaign tour to help the Democrats win this fall in the midterms–only he will do them more damage than good. Obama was a horrible president. He is the only president in history to never see a single year of...

Pardon me for the reference to Yeats's poem "The Second Coming," but events this week reminded me of the poem and this line: "the worst are full of passionate intensity." On the one hand, we have the most effective president in my lifetime, who has, as John Hinderaker details , pulled this country out of the economic doldrums, which were the direct result of the idiotic policies of his predecessor in office: American wages unexpectedly... Unexpectedly! ...climbed in August by the most since the recession ended in 2009 and hiring rose by more than forecast, keeping the Federal Reserve on...

"The unemployment rate held near a generational low of 3.9 percent," CNBC reported today. Wait. That cannot be. That was not what Hillary said would happen, and as everyone knows, she is the Smartest Woman in the World. She is never wrong. "Hillary Clinton says Trump's economic policies will trigger another recession," The Guardian reported on June 17, 2016. The experts had told her so. The story said, "To support her claims, Clinton seized on a report released on Monday by Moody’s Analytics that suggested Trump’s economic policies, if enacted, would trigger a 'lengthy recession'' and lead to the loss...

President Donald Trump paused a campaign speech in North Dakota to bring an unexpected guest onstage. Trump was commenting on the resurgence of the coal industry in America and telling a story about a man who runs a coal mine thanking him for making the industry “vibrant again.” “He said, ‘Sir, what you’ve done for the coal industry is incredible. Because we were dead, and now we’re vibrant again,'” Trump recalled. The president then called on the man to join him onstage: “Where is he? Where is that guy? Where — shout out your name, please. Come up here.” Trump...

President Trump on Friday described his 2016 presidential election as Hillary Clinton's funeral. "I call it Hillary Clinton’s funeral, that was the night she lost the election," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. "It was a funeral, it was a wake." Trump made the remark while speaking about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference. The president has repeatedly attacked the probe as a "witch hunt" and blasted lawyers in the special counsel's office as "17 angry Democrats." Mueller is himself a longtime Republican, previously serving as FBI director under presidents of both parties. Trump on Friday...

iring picked up in August and so did worker pay -- registering the fastest wage growth since 2009 in an encouraging sign that wages may finally be moving higher after years of sluggish gains. August was the 95th straight month the U.S. economy added jobs, with a robust 201,000 job gains, the Labor Department reported Friday, while wages for U.S. workers grew at 2.9 percent in the past year. The national unemployment rate remained at 3.9 percent, one of the lowest levels in half a century. The higher pay is a sign that businesses are having to compete hard for...

(Correction: The original headline said that the African-American unemployment rate in August was the lowest ever; in fact, 6.3% is the second lowest rate on record for African-Americans.) (CNSNews.com) - The midterm election is about "safety and jobs," President Trump told a campaign rally in Montana Thursday night. He said the economy is "booming like never before," and on Friday, the unemployment report brought the president more good news: the unemployment rate for African Americans, 6.3 percent, is the second lowest on record (it was 5.9 percent in May); and job-growth remains strong. For Hispanics, the unemployment rate increased two-tenths...

Jobless claims fell last week even further to a new post-1969 record of 203,000. This is the lowest level for initial claims for state unemployment benefits since December 6, 1969 when it was 202,000.

Nonfarm payrolls grew by 201,000 in August. Economists surveyed by Reuters expected a 191,000 increase. Average hourly earnings jumped by 2.9 percent, above the 2.7 percent increase expected. The unemployment rate held near a generational low of 3.9 percent. Long-awaited wage growth posted its biggest increase of the economic recovery in August while payroll gains beat expectations and the unemployment rate held near a generational low of 3.9 percent, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Friday. Average hourly earnings rose 2.9 percent for the month on an annualized basis, while nonfarm payrolls grew by 201,000. Economists surveyed by...

Economy adds more jobs than expected in August, and wage growth hits post-recession high

The U.S. trade deficit widened in July by the most in three years and the gap with China hit a record as the Trump administration imposed tariffs on a range of Chinese goods, prompting retaliatory levies from Beijing. Please see link for full article.

American construction workers are seeing their wages rise in the blue collar industry as President Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” tightened labor market forces business to find and employ disenfranchised U.S. workers, rather than importing foreign workers. Trump’s tightened labor market has shifted the burden of the economy away from American workers — who are forced to compete for U.S. jobs in many states against cheaper, illegal aliens — and towards business that now must look for and employ Americans they would have previously passed on to hire foreign workers instead. Most recently, the tight labor market helped reintegrate retirees...

Kavanaugh Will Kill the Constitution The legitimacy of the Supreme Court is on the line. By Paul Krugman Opinion Columnist Sept. 6, 2018 At a fundamental level, the attempt to jam Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court closely resembles the way Republicans passed a tax cut last year. Once again we see a rushed, nakedly partisan process, with G.O.P. leaders withholding much of the information that’s supposed to go into congressional deliberations. Once again the outcome is all too likely to rest on pure tribalism: Unless some Republicans develop a very late case of conscience, they will vote along party...

President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Speaker Paul Ryan have teamed up this summer to do something that hasn’t happened in two decades — write and pass department spending bills instead of lumping everything into a massive package. The House and Senate are moving at a brisk pace to pass the appropriations bills, with the Senate leading, approving nine of 12. What’s more, the Trump administration has pushed through key priorities on wall and Pentagon spending, as well as curbing wasteful programs, though still ending up with a more expensive budget than they wanted by over $50...

Conservative economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore are predicting a new mass exodus of wealth from New York and California because of the new tax law. But academics who have studied taxes and migration call the forecast "pure nonsense."In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal headlined "So Long, California. Sayonara, New York," Laffer and Moore (who have both advised President Donald Trump) say the new tax bill will cause a net 800,000 people to move out of California and New York over the next three years.The tax changes limit the deduction of state and local taxes to $10,000, so...

Sen. Bernie Sanders' criticism of Amazon peaked Wednesday as he and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced legislation to tax corporations for every dollar that their low-wage workers receive in government health-care benefits or food stamps. The bill, pointedly called the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies, or BEZOS, Act, is aimed at shaming companies like Amazon and Walmart, whose workers rely on public assistance. For months, Sanders has targeted Amazon, juxtaposing the wealth of CEO Jeff Bezos with reports that Amazon warehouse workers are paid less than industry averages and rely on food stamps. Bezos is the richest man...

We’ve heard it all before.“Analysis: Trump has 1% chance of nomination” – CNN (7/9/2015)“Why Trump Will Never Make the Ballot” – The Daily Beast (8/20/2015)“Relax, Donald Trump Can’t Win” – The Nation (6/21/2016)“On Nov. 9, let's pretend Donald Trump never happened” – Chicago Tribune (10/24/2016)As the old saying goes – “the more things change, the more they stay the same” – so it seems with the predictions for President Trump’s failure now. “Poll by sinking poll, Trump inches toward impeachment” – The Washington Post (8/31/2018)“Poll finds Trump would lose in 2020 against literally any Democrat” – AOL (3/7/2018)“No, impeachment will...

Illegal immigrants are opting out of government welfare programs out of fear of Trump Administration crackdowns coming done the pike, reported POLITICO on Monday. Due to a proposed Trump Administration rule to deny legal status to illegals on welfare, both legal and illegal immigrants have been inundating health care providers with calls demanding they be dropped from federal assistance programs like WIC. “Agencies in at least 18 states say they’ve seen drops of up to 20 percent in enrollment, and they attribute the change largely to fears about the immigration policy,” says the report.

After President Trump announced he wants to revoke federal workers' automatic 2.1% pay raise this year, the response was predictable. Democrats and government unions squealed. The only really surprising thing is that Trump didn't do it sooner. "In light of our nation's fiscal situation, Federal employee pay must be performance-based, and aligned strategically toward recruiting, retaining and rewarding high-performing Federal employees and those with critical skill sets," Trump wrote in a letter to Congress. The move brought a near-instantaneous response. "Cutting federal pay is not the way to run the best government possible or to recruit and retain the most...