The Fed ought to patch the wound left by August’s jobs report– www.cnbc.com Source Link Excerpt:
At this moment in the U.S. economy — when interest rates are higher than usual and inflation still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target — the jobs report is rather like an injury. You want it bad enough, like a gash, to elicit sympathy from others, but not so serious that it rends flesh and exposes bone.
The August jobs report was more like the latter. New payrolls came in more than one-third below expectations. On the bright side, even though the unemployment rate rose to 4.3% from 4.2% the month prior, it was largely because of a 436,000 increase in the size of the labor force — meaning it’s not so much layoffs but more job seekers that caused the increase in unemployment.
That said, the wound to the U.S. economy was severe enough that traders expect the Federal Reserve to administer some tender loving care soon. According to the CME FedWatch tool, the futures market, as of Sunday night stateside, has priced in an 8% chance of a supersized 50 basis points rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s September meeting. The probability was 0% a month ago. And a 25 basis points reduction is all but certain.
The prospect of such soothing by the central bank helped investors bear the pain of the jobs report stoically. Major U.S. indexes fell Friday, but only moderately. The Nasdaq Composite closed around the flatline, supported by strong bones in the tech sector.
If the Fed cuts rates later this month — a move it’ll almost certainly make — it’ll be a stitch, just in time, to save investors more than a dime.
RFK Jr. wants to overhaul the country’s ‘vaccine court.’ Here’s what stands in his way.– www.livescience.com Source Link Excerpt:
For almost 40 years, people who suspect they’ve been harmed by a vaccine have been able to turn to a little-known system called the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program — often simply called the vaccine court.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been a critic of the vaccine court, calling it “biased” against compensating people, slow and unfair. He has said that he wants to “revolutionize” or “fix” this system.
Arizona Republicans seek to expel lawmaker who reposted Ice raid information | Arizona– www.theguardian.com Source Link Excerpt:
A Democratic lawmaker in Arizona who is facing calls for expulsion for resharing an Instagram post warning of immigration enforcement activity near an elementary school said that state senate Republicans “absolutely are trying to make an example out of me”.
Analise Ortiz, a Democratic state senator in Arizona, shared an Instagram post from a community organization that warned, in text only, that immigration enforcement agents were near a local elementary school.
“Alert/Alerta: ICE activity near Southwest Elementary,” the post in early August said, adding the cross streets of the school. “ICE is present. La migra esta presente.”
That post is at the center of an ethics complaint filed this week against Ortiz and a viral rightwing campaign against her.
“The ethics complaint very clearly says that they want to stop other people from sharing this type of information,” she said, calling it “a stunning escalation of intimidation”.
In a public conversation during a press conference, President Trump revealed that Tulsi Gabbard, his National Intelligence Director, found “burn bags” with evidence that shows the government was working to undermine the President’s 2020 campaign. She said of the find, “… we are finding documents (that reveal) the politicization that was led by people like John Brennan and James Clapper and others that have caused really immeasurable harm to the American people and to our country.”
Gabbard Located Burn Bags Containing Documents About 2020 Election– legalinsurrection.com Source Link Excerpt:
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard confirmed to President Donald Trump that she located burn bags filled with documents about the 2020 election.
TRUMP: And you’ve also found many bags of information. I think they call them burn bags. They’re supposed to be burned and they didn’t get burned, having to do with how corrupt the 2020 election was, and when will that all come out?
GABBARD: Mr. President, I will be the first to brief you once we have that information collected. But you’re right. It’s, it’s, we are finding documents literally tucked away in the back of safes and random offices, in these bags, and in other areas, which again, speaks to the intent of those who are trying to hide the truth from the American people and trying to cover up the politicization that was led by people like John Brennan and James Clapper and others that have caused really immeasurable harm to the American people and to our country.
🚨 BREAKING: Tulsi Gabbard confirms she located documents in BURN BAGS related to CORRUPTION in the 2020 election
“We are finding documents literally tucked away in the back of safes in random offices in these bags and in other areas which again… pic.twitter.com/yhSS35NRqQ
Tragically, Mamdani is gaining momentum: Ironically, it is being made possible, made to happen, but the very people who benefited the most from capitalism. You can make this stuff up, Imagine, a billionaire funding a communist who says there shouldn’t be billionaires. Deadly stupidity.
Big Tech workers, including from Google and Meta, were among the biggest group of donors to Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign — creating a fresh headache for companies in the Big Apple that could feel the brunt of the self-proclaimed Democratic socialist’s policies, The Post has learned.
The 33-year-old upstart has spooked New York business and tech leaders — many of whom fear that his vow to raise taxes on the wealthy and past calls to defund the police will spark a mass exodus similar to what San Francisco experienced under progressive leaders in recent years.
However, their underlings have thrown their financial support behind the front-runner for City Hall.
Rank-and-file Google employees donated nearly $40,500 to Mamdani’s campaign through July 11 — more than any other company or institution, according to NYC campaign finance data reviewed by The Post.
Meta workers chipped in more than $10,500, ranking seventh on the list, followed by Amazon employees, who donated nearly $9,000.
A fifth grader at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis said his friend shielded him from gunfire and was struck in the back during Wednesday’s mass shooting as they hid under the pews.
Ten-year-old Weston Halsne told CNN he was sitting near the windows inside the church when shots rang out. He said at first he was unsure of what the noise was, but quickly dove under the pews and covered his head.
“My friend, Victor, like saved me though. ‘Cause he laid on top of me. But he got hit,” Halsne said. “My friend got hit in the back.” He added that Victor was taken to the hospital.
New details have emerged surrounding the investigation into former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who may have allowed a foreign government to gain access to classified intelligence when publishing a memoir in 2020, according to a bombshell report from the New York Times.
Despite constant allegations from Democrats and mainstream media pundits of political targeting on the part of the Trump Administration, The Times reported that the current investigation into Bolton “began to pick up steam” during the Biden presidency. Intelligence officials began to investigate after obtaining evidence that he may have mishandled classified information, according to unnamed sources familiar with the inquiry.
Credible accusations against Bolton first surfaced in 2020, when the Trump Administration filed a lawsuit attempting to block the release of his book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” The government argued that Bolton did not go through the proper vetting process with the National Security Council when drafting the book, a mandatory process for government officials seeking to publish works that may contain classified information.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth refused to block the publication, but only because it was too late. He did conclude, however, that Bolton “likely published classified materials” and had “exposed his country to harm.” He later allowed the wider lawsuit to go forward, which was ultimately dismissed by the Biden Administration in 2021.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday voided a Pennsylvania law requiring proper dating of mail-in ballots. The law required the rejection of mail-in ballots improperly dated by voters. The Pennsylvania Attorney General, now a Republican, defended the law on appeal after his predecessor, a Democrat, had declined to defend it in a lower court.
Numerous types of dating errors could result in ballot rejection, the appeals court noted:
Pursuant to this “date requirement,” if a return envelope’s date field contains a mistaken additional digit, a stray pen mark, or missing information (including a year) then the ballot contained within that envelope may not be counted. (citations omitted)
The law led to 10,000 discarded ballots in the 2022 General Election. Only 4,500 ballots were discarded in the 2024 General Election after Pennsylvania redesigned the return envelope to reduce the number of discarded ballots.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that while the dating requirement only minimally burdened voters, the consequences of an improperly dated ballot outweighed any purported benefit of the requirement.
The challenge came after the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania interpreted a part of the state election code requiring voters to “fill out, date and sign” their mail-in ballot. The state supreme court held that the dating requirement mandates discarding ballots that are improperly dated.
