► Job growth is up, and unemployment is down in the latest economic numbers. From The Associated Press:
America’s employers added a surprisingly strong 254,000 jobs in September, easing concerns about a weakening labor market and suggesting that the pace of hiring is still solid enough to support a growing economy.
Last month’s gain was far more than economists had expected, and it was up sharply from the 159,000 jobs that were added in August. And after rising for most of 2024, the unemployment rate dropped for a second straight month, from 4.2% in August to 4.1% in September, the Labor Department said Friday.
The latest figures suggest that many companies are still confident enough to fill jobs despite the continued pressure of high interest rates. Few employers are laying off workers, though many have grown more cautious about hiring.
In an encouraging sign, the Labor Department also revised up its estimate of job growth in July and August by a combined 72,000. Combined with those revisions, September’s job gain — forecasters had predicted only around 140,000 — means that job growth has averaged a solid 186,000 over the past three months. In August, the three-month average was only 140,000.
“There’s still more momentum than we had given it credit for,’’ Stephen Stanley, chief economist at the banking company Santander, said of the job market. “I would call it solid — certainly not as explosive as what we were seeing last year or the year before, when we were catching up from the pandemic. But the pace of job growth overall is very healthy.’’ [Pols emphasis]
► As former Rocky Mountain News reporter Jim Tankersley explains for The New York Times, Bidenomics is giving a big boost to Kamalamentum:
Vice President Kamala Harris probably could not have hoped for a better run of pre-election economic data than what the United States has enjoyed over the last month, punctuated by Friday’s surprisingly strong jobs report.
In recent weeks, key inflation indicators have fallen close to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target rate, after years of running hot under Ms. Harris and President Biden. Federal Reserve officials cut interest rates by a half-percentage point to stoke economic activity, immediately bringing mortgage rates to their lowest point in two years. The Commerce Department confirmed that the economy has grown at a robust 3 percent clip over the last year, after adjusting for rising prices. The Census Bureau reported that the typical household’s inflation-adjusted income jumped in 2023.
Those numbers had encouraged Democrats, including policymakers in the White House and close to Ms. Harris’s campaign team. Recent polls have shown Ms. Harris closing the gap, or pulling even, with former President Donald J. Trump on the question of who can best handle the economy and inflation. [Pols emphasis]
► There’s good news for Vice President Kamala Harris in the latest polling numbers out of Nevada, one of the key swing states in 2024:
► Former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters was sentenced to 9 years in the clink for her various crimes related to breaking into her own election computers in 2021 in a silly attempt to prove some sort of 2020 election fraud. Kyle Clark of 9News takes note of the very real personal cost of election denialism:
Post by @kyleclark9news
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► Democrat Trisha Calvarese is unlikely to defeat Lauren Boebert in CO-04 because of the heavy Republican tilt in the district, but it won’t be for a lack of solid paid media:
► As Sara Wilson reports for Colorado Newsline, mayors from across Colorado are lining up in support of Proposition 131:
The mayors of Colorado’s three largest cities have endorsed Proposition 131, a statewide ballot measure that proposes to eliminate single-party primaries and enact ranked-choice voting in most state and federal elections.
Mayors Mike Johnston, a Denver Democrat, Mike Coffman, an Aurora Republican and Yemi Mobolade, a Colorado Springs independent, announced their joint support of the measure on Thursday.
“Proposition 131 is a tool that will help empower the voters of Colorado, not political parties,” Mobolade said in a statement. “Almost half the voters in Colorado like me are registered independents, and it’s time for our election system to reflect the reality of that growing trend by eliminating the partisanship that currently undermines the true voice and values of the people.”
Elsewhere, Colorado Public Radio does a deeper dive into explaining how Open Primaries and ranked voting would work in practice.
► Check out this interesting website called TargetEarly that is tracking early voting numbers and comparing them to prior election cycles.
►Dana Milbank of The Washington Post examines another nutball statewide candidate in North Carolina:
As if the good people of North Carolina haven’t suffered enough lately, they also have to worry about this: a network of child traffickers and pedophiles that tortures and kills children to harvest their blood for an anti-aging elixir known as adrenochrome.
Or so believes the Republican candidate to be the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Michele Morrow.
“The evil, demon-possessed people who worship Satan have been using this to try to keep their youth,” Morrow said in a video she posted on Facebook in 2020. “They’ve been using it as a drug that is more powerful than street drugs. … It is gotten through children who are being tortured and know that they are about to die. Guys, this is deep, it is evil, and it is real. It is truly happening, and we have got to stop it.” Among those she has identified as adrenochrome users is the actor Jim Carrey.
And this is not the only shocking discovery made by Morrow. Just a couple of weeks ago, she informed the public that the plus sign in LGBTQ+ “includes PEDOPH*L*A!!”She previously proposed a “Pay Per View” of Barack Obama “in front of the firing squad” because “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.” She also called for the executions of President Joe Biden, Bill Gates and several others.
►The Associated Press has more on a potential “October surprise” that may hurt Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump:
Days before rioters roamed the halls of the U.S. Capitol threatening to “hang Mike Pence,” Donald Trump told his vice president that people are going to “hate your guts” and “think you’re stupid” if he failed to stop the 2020 election certification.
The New Year’s Day warning wasn’t the first time Trump pressured Pence to overturn the election results. Nor was it the last. In what came to be known as “Operation Pence Card,” Trump spent weeks publicly and privately pushing his vice president to help him stay in power after losing.
“You’re too honest,” Trump berated his vice president in that Jan. 1 morning call.
After they hung up, the president tweeted a reminder for his followers to come to Washington for the “BIG Protest Rally” just days away — what would become the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.
The exchanges between the president and his vice president, detailed in special counsel Jack Smith’s court filing this week, show the extraordinary lengths Trump went to overturn the 2020 election, even as he lays the groundwork to challenge this year’s contest, if he loses.
► Rich asshole Elon Musk will join Donald Trump on Saturday for a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — the same place where Trump survived an assassination attempt in July.
► Here’s what Donald Trump’s campaign spokesperson says about clear visual evidence that people attending Trump speeches are leaving early:
“The fake news media never wants to report the truth about President Trump’s rallies: they are the biggest political events in history,” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement.
► Nick Coltrain of The Denver Post looks into a familiar election-year story:
Outside committees have spent more than $1.2 million on a handful of Colorado legislative races already this election cycle, highlighting the electoral fights that could determine how much power the majority Democrats will have in the Capitol for the next two years.
The spending, most of it by party-aligned independent expenditure committees, largely targets nine House races and four Senate races throughout the state. Those contests are likely key for Republicans trying to claw back from a historic low point in political power in Colorado — and for Democrats looking to grow their trifecta control of state government.
They would do that by attaining supermajority status in the Senate, as they’ve already done in the House. That threshold, which confers even more control to the majority party, requires winning at least two-thirds of the seats.
The committees’ spending, as tallied in campaign finance reports filed by a deadline earlier this week, sets the stage for the final weeks of the election season — with millions more dollars expected to flood in.
Here’s an actual Member of Congress in the United States:
If there are Jewish space lasers, we suppose it follows that there are also weather-control devices.
Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
► New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler has a whole lot of explaining to do, as The New York Times reports:
Representative Mike Lawler of New York wore blackface as part of a Halloween costume when he was a college student almost two decades ago, according to photographs recently obtained by The New York Times.
The images, taken around October 2006, show a 20-year-old Mr. Lawler at a campus social gathering dressed as Michael Jackson. He is wearing a black shirt and a red jacket and, in one photo, is striking a signature Jackson dance pose. His face has also been visibly darkened.
Mr. Lawler, a rising Republican standout from the Hudson Valley, has frequently described himself as an ardent Jackson fan. But the photos are the first known instance of Mr. Lawler, who is white, dressing as the Black musician by wearing blackface, a practice that has long been considered racist.
The images may come into play in Mr. Lawler’s fight for re-election this fall against Mondaire Jones, a Black former congressman, in a suburban swing seat. The Republican is also eyeing a run for governor in 2026.
There is a certain type of person who would do this sort of thing…and it always seems to be a Republican.
► Oh, you didn’t think that was weird enough? Maybe we can help:
ICYMI
► Don’t miss this absolutely beautiful (and brutal) takedown during a Club 20 debate in Grand Junction in which Democratic Rep. Elizabeth Velasco makes a fool of Republican challenger Caleb Waller, who can do little else but mumble the word “freedom” in response to a question that he should know something about.
► You can admit it: You aren’t even slightly surprised to hear that Congressperson Lauren Boebertbelieves the earth is flat.
October 04, 2024 09:42 AM UTC
1 Comments
Mail ballots in Colorado start, um, mailing one week from today. Let’s Get More Smarter! 
AKA Baghdad Betty?