Real retail sales disappoints . . . the Doomers This morning’s report on July retail sales once again belies the claim that “hard data” and “soft data” are divergent.. Not only did July come in at a strong +0.6% (+0.5% ex-autos), but June was revised up as well. Given basically non-existent inflation, this means that […]
One tiny little ray of hope After the Charlottesville, VA white supremacy violence, and his failure to explicitly condemn it, Donald Trump’s Gallup approval rating has fallen to a new low of 34%, and his disapproval to a new high of 61%: This puts him below the lowest ratings during their entire term of Lyndon […]
From an old sixties coffee house person, just a little history. In 1950, Woodie Guthrie signed a two year lease to reside in a Fred Trump’s Brooklyn development. Having wandered around the countryside for a number of years, he knew the North did not have any special claim to racial enlightenment. One event of a […]
According to the latest figures, 93.3% of federal prisoners are men. The male to female incarceration rate is also wildly lopsided in state and county facilities, and to my knowledge, pretty much everywhere else in the world. I also am unable to think of a single example where there is reason to believe that women […]
In a recent email exchange with Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism: “This is not going to work with voters. Tom Frank has been all over this topic, saying again and again, the Dems are refusing to give up on their losing strategy of focusing on the 10%, and are trying to cover for their abandonment […]
At a conference on Wednesday, National delegates voted to adopt the advisory for Missouri It is the first time the NAACP has issued a travel advisory for a state. The “extreme caution” notification is not exclusive to high crime areas such as may be found in cities. The notification is meant to make minorities more […]
Via Slate by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern: The Clarence Thomas takeover But Thomas is more than just the Trump administration’s philosophical hero. His once-fringy ideas are suddenly flourishing—not only on the high court, through his alliance with Gorsuch, but also in the executive branch. … Everywhere you turn in Trumpland, you’ll find a slew of […]
The hardy perennial “Democrat’s circular firing squad is in disarray” story line is looking a bit withered. During the whole dramatic absurd Trumpcare drama (so far Trumpcare is a zombie which can’t be killed) ALL 48 Democratic senators remained united. In 2016 the new Clinton adopted a neo-neo-liberal platform which was actually liberal. However, some […]
Rasmussen poll shows GOP losing midterms in a wave I like K.I.S.S. methods, and I have decided that the easiest K.I.S.S. guide to the midterm elections is likely to be Rasmussen’s “net strong disapproval” spread. The theory is that while voters who even weakly approve or disapprove of a President are likely to come out […]
Understating Trump’s “Achievements” I regularly hear and see on media and the internet that Trump “has accomplished nothing in six months” or variations on that, with some of these remarks focusing more on his legislative agenda, with discussions about whether it is “dead” or not here after only six months, which is either a very […]