Author: Matthew G. Saroff

The Unemployment Rate Dropped in October

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Down to 6.9%.

As always, I am a pessimist, and think that this largely an illusion, and possibly some politically rat-f%$#ery.

Given the election, and the likelihood that Trump will spend the next 2½ months wrecking the place, I do not expect this to improve.

Also, a deeper dive into the numbers reveals some very real problems:

A better-than-expected October jobs report was immediately met with warnings that the surge in COVID-19 cases in the US could eventually force parts of the economy back into partial lockdowns.

That will apparently serve as the “fine print” on an otherwise solid report which showed the unemployment rate falling below 7%.

As ever, it’s important to look under the proverbial hood for evidence of the dreaded “scarring” effect that Jerome Powell (and other Fed officials) have consistently warned about since the onset of the pandemic. Jumping right in, long-term unemployment rose to 32.5% in October. That’s up sharply from 19.1% in September.

That figure has surged over the past two months. As Bloomberg’s Katia Dmitrieva puts it, “one-third of the unemployed haven’t had a job since the first round of coronavirus layoffs in April.”

Each month, I look at permanent job losses. Think of it as the economic equivalent of fatalities in the pandemic. It’s a macabre lagging indicator.

In October, that figure was little changed, stuck at nearly 3.7 million, up 2.4 million from February.

Needless to say, a situation that finds 2.4 million more job losses classified as “permanent” versus just eight months ago, argues for additional fiscal support.

Also notable is the rise in persons employed part time for economic reasons. October’s 383,000 increase was the first in five months.

………

The unfortunate reality is that payrolls remain 10 million lower than they were pre-pandemic. There’s (much) more work to be done. And surging COVID cases aren’t going to make that work any easier.

I am not the only won who thinks that we are in for the proverbial bumpy ride.

And the Election is Finally Called

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Get over it

The have called the election for Joe Biden by all the major media organizations now.

Pennsylvania was called for Biden earlier today, giving him a total of 279 electoral college, though when Arizona and Georgia (!) finish counting, the total is likely be be 306.

A number of people have suggested that we give a few days for the Trump supporters to deal this emotionally.

F%$# that.

They are a bunch of f%$#ing snowflakes, and so I am to channel my inner Trump voter, and tell them to get the f%$# over it, and to get the f%$# over themselves.

I’m not going out and stomping on Cheetos® right now, though I did try to convince the family to go to the White House and start chanting, “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye.”

They wisely decided to take a nap instead.

So Not a Surprise

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It turns out that the Lincoln Project, much beloved by the MSNBC crowd, appears to have been little more than a scam to separate money from limousine liberals:

A group of longtime Republican operatives depicting themselves as anti-Trump stalwarts convinced liberals to give them more money for ineffective television ads and stunts than was raised by the Democratic Party’s national campaign to win state legislatures.

The result: Donald Trump won more Republican votes than he did in 2016 as Democrats again lost state legislatures in advance of redistricting that could determine control of Congress for the next decade.

Meanwhile, the GOP operatives are reportedly positioned to go from lighting liberals’ money on fire during the 2020 election to now using liberals’ money to launch a media empire that could push a new Biden administration to the right.

………

While the Lincoln Project’s YouTube videos lampooning Trump received millions of views and endless promotion on MSNBC, the ads proved ineffective in the group’s stated goal: As the Daily Poster first reported, Trump actually increased his share of the Republican vote in 2020 as compared to 2016, when the Lincoln Project did not exist.

………

As Lincoln Project burned liberals’ money on unpersuasive videos and expensive stunts — including a Times Square billboard in the uncontested locale of Manhattan — the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee raised far less money in its battle for control of legislatures.

The Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman noted last month that “direct messaging against Trump (@ProjectLincoln ads, etc.) is ineffective in swing states. Dem messages that actually move votes: talking about education & majoritarian economic policies.”

………

While the Lincoln Project failed to generate significant Republican defections, the effort has been a financial windfall for GOP operatives.

Earlier this year, the group was lampooned by Stephen Colbert’s cartoon show for spending so much money on overhead rather than on ads. By the end of September, the group had funneled $4.5 million through Summit Strategic Communications, run by the group’s cofounder Reed Galen. The group also reported paying $3.9 million to Tusk Digital, led by another Lincoln Project cofounder, Ron Steslow.

Never-Trump Republicans are still Republicans, which means that they cannot be trusted.  Ever.

Of Course He Did

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In New York City, the commander of the police department’s Equal Employment Opportunity Division was just suspended for repeated unhinged racist rants on a law enforcement discussion board.

This is my shocked face:

For more than 20 years, an online chat board called the Rant has been the place where New York City police officers have gone in secret to complain about their jobs — not infrequently using blatantly racist and misogynistic language.

But even by the website’s vitriolic standards, scores of recent posts by a user who calls himself “Clouseau” have been especially disturbing.

Between the summer of 2019 and earlier this fall, “Clouseau” posted hundreds of messages on the Rant, many of which attacked Black people, Puerto Ricans, Hasidic Jews and others with an unbridled sense of animus.

He referred to former President Barack Obama as a “Muslim savage” and called the Bronx district attorney, Darcel D. Clark, who is Black, “a gap-toothed wildebeest.”

Now, city investigators say they have amassed evidence that “Clouseau” is a high-ranking police official. And not just any high-ranking official — the one assigned to an office responsible for combating workplace harassment in the Police Department.

………

The police official, Deputy Inspector James F. Kobel, adamantly denied that he had written the racist messages. The posts have been taken down since the Council began its inquiry, and the profile deleted.

………

Inspector Kobel denied the allegations to his superiors, a police official said. But on Thursday, he was relieved of his command of the Equal Employment Opportunity Division and placed on modified assignment pending completion of the department inquiry.

“That is a drastic step, but we thought it was the appropriate step due to the nature of his given assignment as well as the allegations and what we have learned thus far,” the police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, said. He added that the comments posted by “Clouseau” were “utterly disgusting.”

This guy is a deputy inspector.  They would not be going after him so aggressively unless they had him dead to rights on this.  (The cynic in me considers the possibility that he is being taken down to prevent evidence of law enforcement misconduct from becoming public).

BTW, there is no reason that the rant should not be routinely monitored by internal affairs and civil rights and EEOC staffers.

A racist garbage man can screw up your recyclables, but a racist cop can make you dead.

Not a Good Thing to Do on Bail

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Steve Bannon, conservative activist and under-bridge troll, is out on bail following being charged with fraud.

Well now, his legal team has quit after he publicly announced that he wanted to behead Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI directory Christopher Wray.

First, public death threats against government officials is never a good look, and this goes double when you are on bail, and your behavior can justify a judge to revoke bail.

Really stupid, and I really hope that the judge takes umbrage at his behavior:

Stephen K. Bannon, the former adviser to President Trump who is known for his right-wing extremism, suggested on Thursday that the F.B.I. director and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci should be beheaded, and Twitter responded by banning one of his accounts.

On Friday, a prominent lawyer who was defending Mr. Bannon against fraud charges in federal court in Manhattan abruptly moved to drop him as a client, one person familiar with the matter said.

“Mr. Bannon is in the process of retaining new counsel,” the lawyer, William A. Burck, said in a brief letter to the court, giving no explanation.

………

The loss of his white-shoe representation was just the latest setback for Mr. Bannon, 66, who has struggled for political relevance since losing his job at the White House eight months after Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

………

Since August, Mr. Bannon has been fighting the criminal charges lodged against him by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the case in which Mr. Burck has been his lawyer.

Mr. Bannon was arrested on charges of defrauding donors to a campaign to privately fund a wall on the United States’ border with Mexico, one of Mr. Trump’s signature political promises.

………

The video showed Mr. Bannon calling for violence against Dr. Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases specialist, and Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director. Both officials have become targets of pro-Trump pundits who accuse them of undermining the president.

Mr. Bannon, in his comments, invoked punishment from the medieval era.

“I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England,” Mr. Bannon said. “I’d put the heads on pikes, right? I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats: You either get with the program or you’re gone.”

………

Mr. Burck gave no reasons for seeking to sever ties with Mr. Bannon in the two-paragraph letter he submitted on Friday to the judge, Analisa Torres of Federal District Court, who must approve a change in lawyers.

Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at New York University School of Law, said speaking generally, “Lawyers will withdraw when a client’s behavior sabotages the lawyer’s work on the client’s behalf.”

In a just world, he’d be in lockup already, but he’s rich, and white, so probably nothing will happen.

Corrupt Idiots, Not Trump Edition

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I did not realize that the Democrats spent more on the hopelessly run McGrath campaign than they did in an attempt to take back state houses, which control redistricting.

Giving your money to the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is less effective at getting Democrats elected than giving to the Libertarian party, which is the margin in a few states in the Presidential election.

If the DNC, DCCC, or DSCC call you asking for donations, calmly explain to them that you have decided to hit yourself over the head with a rubber mallet while setting your money on fire, because that is a far more pleasant and far more effective way of supporting the Democratic Party.

This is not incompetence though, this looting.

It’s not incompetence, it’s looting.

The Democratic Party establishment’s (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has a revolving door between party staff and political consultants, and those consultants make more money losing expensive than they do winning cheap.  (They get a cut of the media buy)

We need to break the hold of the consultants on the party machinery, because the foxes are running the henhouse.

The Poor Showing in the House Races

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6 incumbent house Democrats have been defeated.

The caucus memberships, and politics, of the 6 losers are interesting:

  • Kendra Horn, Caucuses: Blue Dog, New Dem
  • Collin Peterson, Caucuses: Blue Dog
  • Xochitl Torres Small, Caucuses: Blue Dog, New Dem
  • Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Caucuses: New Dem
  • Joe Cunningham, Caucuses: Blue Dog, New Dem
  • Donna Shalala: Caucuses: None that matter, but ineluctably tied to both Clintons, and facilitated a union busting campaign while president of the University of Miami.

I was hoping that it would be one more, but the contemptible Cheri Bustos pulled out a squeaker. 

The policy of the DCC, DNC and DSCC to actively support conservative Democrats, even where it does not match the electorate is a losing proposition.

Do not give to these organizations.  Give to the candidates directly, via Act Blue or the like.

What a Dump F%$#ing Mook

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Ironically, this is also the name of serial malpractice political consultant Robbie Mook.

In 2016, he ran Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and lost to an inverted traffic cone, and now:

The Democratic Super PAC in charge of House races is going to face serious questions about how it lost seats when projected to pick them up.

House Majority PAC’s president is Robby Mook.

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 5, 2020

So the guy who lost by neglecting the ground game and local reports in 2016, lost in 2020 by doing the same thing.

Why does this motherf%$#er have a job? 

Seriously, when it comes to failing up, Dick Cheney looks at Robby Mook, and thinks:

Unemployment Claims Steady This Week

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Unemployment claims were basically flat at 751,000, a drop of about seven thousand.

This is not indicative of a recovery:

The pace of the labor market recovery showed fresh signs of cooling last week, with new applications for unemployment benefits holding nearly steady as virus cases surged in several states.

Weekly initial claims for jobless benefits fell by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 751,000 in the week ended Oct. 31, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was the lowest level since mid-March, but was well above the 217,000 claims filed in late February, before economic shutdowns to control the spread of the new coronavirus began.

The previous week’s data were revised up by 7,000 to 758,000.

“The level of filings is trending down over time, but this downward trend has flattened noticeably,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. economist Daniel Silver wrote in a note to clients. “This is consistent with the idea that the labor market continues to recover, but that the pace of improvement has moderated.”

As I’ve noted before, the initial recovery was 1 part dead cat bounce, and 1 part the stimulus package,and both of those have expires.

There Have Have Been Some Other Races, You Know

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The Good:

  • Charmaine McGuffey beat incumbent Bruce Hoffbauer for Hamilton County sheriff in Ohio. This is a big deal because Hoffbauer fired her for being gay.
  • Incumbent Jackie Johnson was defeated as  Glynn County District Attorney by Keith Higgins.  Johnson was notorious for attempting to bury the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery by a former employee of hers.
  • California proposition 17, giving the vote to parolees won. 
  • California proposition 20, making a number of misdemeanors felonies lost.
  • California proposition 24, expanding data privacy won.
  • Massachusetts question 1, expanding the right to repair for independent shops and individuals won. 
  • Minimum wage hikes and marijuana legalization generally won.
  • Colorado proposition 113, allocating electors on the basis of the national popular vote, won.
  • Colorado proposition 115, restricting abortions, lost.
  • Colorado proposition 118, paid family and medical leave, won.
  • Virginia question 1, establishing a non-partisan redistricting commission won.

The Bad:

  • California proposition 21, expanding rent control lost.
  • California proposition 15, allowing for higher property taxes of businesses lost. (A partial repeal of the disastrous proposition 13)
  • Louisiana amendment 1, removing the right to an abortion won.
  • Illinois rejected a constitutional amendment allowing for a progressive income tax.

The Ugly:

  • California proposition 22, Uber and Lyft bought themselves an election so that they can continue mistreat their employees.
  • Florida amendment 1, which is intended to foster bogus citizenship challenges against voters, won.

They Should Have Used a Yellow Star

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It looks like some MAGAts were tagging the streets in front of Biden Supporters’ houses in Roseville, California. 

This is a clear threat of future violence, and it is terrorism, just the same as if they burnt a cross on their front yard:

Residents of Roseville, Calif., have reported blue dots being spray-painted in front of homes with Biden-Harris campaign signs, local affiliate KCRA-TV reports.

Roseville resident Adam Quilici told the news outlet that he was making breakfast when a neighbor told him to look in front of his home. He said a blue dot was painted in the road in front of his house.

Other residents told the news outlet they believe the dots were painted between Saturday and Sunday.

“The houses that were targeted have Biden-Harris signs in front of them — every single one,” Quilici told KCRA-TV. “There aren’t any blue dots anywhere where there are not those signs present.”

Quilici called the police, according to the news outlet, and they told him that they believed him after making sure it had nothing to do with utilities.

“This is not just a smashed pumpkin on Halloween,” Quilici said. “This is like a message and I’m not really OK with it.”

People are doing things like this because they do not believe that there will be consequences for their actions.

The first step is to disabuse these folks of that assumption, and that means arrests and prosecutions.

To do anything else is to encourage violence and threats of violence.

The Greatest Quarterback of All Time

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Patrick Mahomes asked the Chiefs to turn Arrowhead Stadium into an Election Day voting site, but the election board said no due to a lack of voting machines.

Instead of giving up, Mahomes bought new machines — splitting the “six-figure investment” with the Chiefs.

He gets it. pic.twitter.com/IfbUJ6zp0l

— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) November 4, 2020

I am not a Kansas City Chefs fan, but I am a fan of their quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

This is a Metaphor for Something………

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In North Dakota, the uncool Dakota, a dead man won a seat in the state house.

Honestly, if there is a better metaphor for the incompetent Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment), I have not seen it:

David Andahl died of covid-19 in early October, just as the coronavirus was pummeling his home state of North Dakota. But that did not keep the 55-year-old rancher from winning his race for the state House of Representatives on Tuesday.

With an apparent victory in North Dakota’s 8th District, Andahl’s election marks an unusual overlap between two of the most consequential events in the United States this year: a pandemic that has killed at least 232,000 people in the United States and the unprecedented election season it upended in the process.

………

A cattle rancher and land developer, Andahl had spent 16 years serving on the zoning and planning commission in Burleigh County, including eight years as its chair, according to the Bismarck Tribune. Earlier this year, he won a heated GOP primary against longtime state Rep. Jeff Delzer, who chaired the chamber’s powerful Appropriations Committee.

………

When the coronavirus reached North Dakota, Andahl — who was already grappling with several health issues — was “very cautious,” his family wrote on Facebook. They did not elaborate on what medical challenges he was facing.

As the largely rural state saw a sharp increase in coronavirus cases this fall — at one point leading the country in the number of new cases per capita — Andahl contracted the potentially deadly virus. After four days in the hospital, he died Oct. 5.

The Democratic Party lost to a dead man, and right now, it’s still not settled in the Presidential campaign when they are running against a man whose brain serves only as a launch pad for his hair. 

The current Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is incredibly, and ineluctably, incompetent.

We cold fire them all and replace them with drinking bird toys, and get better results.

Live/Drunk Blogging the Election

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11:40pm:
Massachusetts approves right to repair legislation.

People do not want to be screwed by their car dealers, at least now without lube.

Good night all.

11:38pm:
I am going to leave you with a thought from P.C. Hodgell:

“That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.”

11:32pm:
I’m drunk, and tired, and I’m shutting down.

My final thought: America is broken, and Biden was running on a “Return to Normalcy,” and this is unsustainable.

11:24pm:
If we had nominated Bernie, we’d have already crossed the 270 threshold, but the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment), needed to keep their gravy train rolling.

11:20pm:
Florida approves a $15/hr minimum wage, New Jersey approves recreatinal marijuana.

The initiatives that I am most interested in are right to repair in Massachusetts, and Uber’s attempt to re-institute gig-economy slavery in California.

11:17pm:
I think that I might be too drunk to blog, which is WAY less interesting than the Dead Kennedys album “Too Drunk to F%$#.”

11:13pm:
I need to note that I am NOT going to stay up beyond midnight, so we are probably not gboing to get a final result for this post.

You might want to check out the cat that went to the beach and hated the wind.

11:11pm:
McConnell didn’t just beat McGrath, he destroyed her, and the consultants got a cut of all that money set on fire.

11:03pm:
California, Oregon, and Washington went for Biden, but we knew that this would happen.

Switching to The Daily Show.

10:57pm:
Lindsay Graham (SC) looks to win reelection, but in Georgia, it looks like the Senate race is heading to a runoff.

10:41pm:
Arizona is definitely in play.  Interesting.

10:37pm:
McConnell won reelection against the hapless, and anti-ideological campaign of Amy McGrath, favored by the DNC, the DSCC, and the DNC, has failed because, as I have said, , “You can’t beat something with nothing, even if the something is awful.”

She lost to a f%$#ing box turtle.

10:35pm:
Remembering 2000, please God, let it not come down to Florida.

BTW, it looks like the highest turnout in decades.

10:34pm:
Most of the states out of the Pacific time zone have closed polled.

10:22pm:
Breaking for dinner.  Having some Romenesko Broccoli and cheese soup.

10:21pm:
Doug Jones loses in Alabama.  Not a surprise.  He’s not running against a pedophile this year.

10:18pm:
It looks like Florida is going to go for Trump.

Way to go Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).

10:12pm:
I have a prediction:  That I will be seriously shicker (drunk) within the next 15 minutes.

10:09pm:
Arizona, which is always just one election away from turning Democratic Party, appears to remain one election away.

The consultants don’t care.  They get their vig win or lose.

10:04pm:
The BBC is strongly implying that Trump will pull this out.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) appears to have screwed the pooch once again.

The Iron Law of Institutions, which states that power WITHIN an organization is pursued at the expense of the power OF that organization, may once again end up f%$#ing us all.

10:02pm:
Crap.  It appears that they will be calling Florida for Trump soon.

I wonder how they will blame the progressives for this.

9:59pm:
I took a break to cuddle with Meatball, because I needed some Kitteh:

9:53pm:
For my Jewish friends, if you want to make Aliyah to Israel, you can go to this link.

If you are not Jewish, consider getting a circumcision.

9:47pm:
Democratic party stalwarts are sounding remarkably subdued, because this is NOT the blowout that they expected.

I’ve said this a number of times, “You can’t beat something with nothing, even if the something is awful.”

9:45pm:
Why can’t Comedy Central do coverage of the elections?  It would be so much more pleasant.

Switching to the Beeb.  (BBC)

9:43pm:
Turning off Taibbi and Halper, mostly they are looking for drinking points for their game.

9:36pm:
Checking the NY Times map, and it has:

  • Biden winning Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, DC, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
  • Trump winnign, North & South Dakota, Georgia, Wyoming, Nebraska, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louuisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina.

Ohio is in play in a number of reports.

I need to drink more.

9:31pm:
Crap, the awful Susan Collins looking good right now.  She is the epitome of everything that is wrong with politics.

9:27pm:
Live streaming Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper as well.

They seem bummed, and Virginia seems to be in play.

We are f%$#ed if that is true.

9:21pm:
Switching to MSNBC.

Rachel Maddow, as always is chipper, which I find grating as hell.  I have since she, at the behest of her corporate masters at MSNBC, tried to queer the California primary in 2016.

9:18pm:
Well, here we go.  I’ve poured myself a stiff rum and (flat) Coke, and I am ready to turn to the news.

A Fitting Capstone to the Elections

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A group of noe-Nazis defaced a Jewish cemetery in Michigan, but instead of Swastikas, we goe “Donald Trump” and “MAGA”.

The world is a truly horrible place:

The red spray-painted letters were first spotted on Monday morning, scrawled on the tombstones in a century-old Jewish cemetery in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“TRUMP,” they combined to read across several headstones. Two more gravesites displayed another message in red graffiti: “MAGA.”

This act of vandalism at Ahavas Israel Cemetery, discovered hours before President Trump arrived across town to stage his final rally of the campaign, has rattled the tightknit Jewish community in western Michigan’s largest city. The crime is being investigated by law enforcement officials, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Near the end of a bitter, divisive presidential campaign, the desecration marks yet another instance of political tensions apparently producing ugly and sometimes violent attacks. In Florida and the Berkshires, yard signs have been bulldozed and lit on fire. In Boston and Southern California, ballot drop-off boxes have burned to the ground. Across the country, dueling political rallies and protests have devolved into physical confrontations.

Jews need to remember that even if they aren’t first on some bigot’s hit parade, they are ALWAYS second.