Last Call For Putin On The Fritz

In what has to be a pointed response to Putin's latest nonsense in Syria as Russia has now deployed its top anti-air missiles to stop any US or EU interference with Moscow's plans to help the Assad regime, the US intelligence community is no longer playing nice and is flat out accusing Russia of trying to influence US elections through cyberwarfare.

The denunciation, made by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, came as pressure was growing from within the administration and some lawmakers to hold Moscow accountable for a set of actions apparently aimed at sowing discord around the election.

“The U.S. intelligence community is confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,” said a joint statement from the two agencies. “These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.”

The DNC publicly disclosed the intrusions in June, saying its investigation determined that Russian government hackers were behind the breach. That was followed shortly after by a major leak of DNC emails, some so embarrassing that they forced the resignation of the DNC chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.

The administration also blamed Moscow for the hack of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the subsequent leak of private email addresses and cellphone numbers of Democratic lawmakers.

So yeah, things just got serious (and about time).  There's no doubt in my mind that Putin and his boys are trying to help Trump win for a number of reasons.  If Assange and his crew wasn't going to drop their little October surprise before, they are certainly going to do so after this.

Stay tuned.

The Truth Hits Like A Hurricane

We now live in a world where the Republican party has so pervasively spread mistrust and hatred towards the idea of any government body controlled by the Democrats (and in particular the nation's first black president) that we have idiots like Matt Drudge screaming that the Obama administration is lying about Hurricane Matthew in order to keep up the "myth of global warming".

Hours ahead of Hurricane Matthews’ landfall on Florida’s Atlantic coast, some climate change skeptics downplayed the danger of what meteorologists say could be the worst such storm since Hurricane Katrina.

Public officials and meteorologists have repeatedly stressed the strength of the storm, especially to those living in the evacuation zones on Florida’s Atlantic coast.

“This storm will kill you. Time is running out,” Gov. Rick Scott (R) said in a press conference Thursday. “There are no excuses. You need to leave. Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. Are you willing to take a change to risk your life? Are you willing to take a gamble? That’s what you’re doing.”

Yet in the face of those pleas conservative aggregator Matt Drudge, who has a house in Florida, tweeted that “The deplorables are starting to wonder if govt has been lying to them about Hurricane Matthew intensity to make exaggerated point on climate,” and“Hurricane Center has monopoly on data. No way of verifying claims. Nassau ground observations DID NOT match statements! 165mph gusts? WHERE?”

Drudge later posted the web address of a NOAA buoy and encouraged readers to monitor the storm on their own, to see if “observations match the Hurricane Center’s claimed 140 mph sustained winds."

That's right.  Obama Derangement Syndrome has gotten so bad that we now have friggin hurricane truthers who believe the National Hurricane Center is in on a massive plot to lie to America about global warming, and that somehow data on Hurricane Matthew is being manipulated in order to play up the "hoax" of climate change.

That's where we are in America in 2016.  One party is systematically dismantling the integrity of government itself and has been for decades in order to convince America that they are the only ones who should be legally allowed to run that government, and that the very concept of the other party ever being in charge should be automatically considered an invalid, corrupt, and illegal administration, to the point where Americans should consider armed revolution if that happens.

Unfortunately, a major hurricane one month before the election could very well lead to chaos if Florida is close.

Meanwhile the government is lying to you about hurricanes, Matt Drudge says, so you should ignore them on safety. They're totally illegitimate you know.

That's Donald Trump's America, folks.  I'm not going to be a part of it.

Jobapalooza

The September jobs numbers are in and things are still looking pretty good, just not quite as good as this time last year.

U.S. employment growth unexpectedly slowed for the third straight month in September, which could make the Federal Reserve more cautious about raising interest rates. 

Nonfarm payrolls rose 156,000, down from a revised gain of 167,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said on Friday. 

Economists polled by Reuters had expected employers to add 175,000 jobs last month.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said the economy needs to create less than 100,000 jobs a month to keep up with population growth.Average monthly job gains have been about 180,000 this year, which Yellen has described as "unsustainable." 

The unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a percentage point to 5.0 percent last month, though the increase was driven by Americans rejoining the labor force. 

Friday's employment report will be the last before the Fed's Nov. 1-2 policy meeting. Investors see almost no chance of a rate increase at that meeting given how close it is to the Nov. 8 presidential election. 

Yellen said last month that the Fed will likely raise rates once this year, but prices on fed funds futures suggest just above even odds the hike will come at the Fed's last policy meeting for the year in December.

Hourly wages for private sector workers rose 2.6 percent in September from the same month a year earlier, in line with economists' expectations. The annual growth rate has shown signs of accelerating over the last year although it remains slower than before the 2007-2009 recession.

So people are coming back to the labor force, wages are increasing, but new job growth is slowing a bit.  Again, you would have to wonder what kind of recovery we'd be having if Republicans hadn't killed the American Jobs Act five years ago.  And despite the GOP doing everything it could to sabotage the economy, it has still managed to create 11 million jobs compared to Dubya's 1.3 million.

But we need Trump to fix it?  OK, sure.

Here's the reality: this now means we're in a 72-month private sector job growth streak.

Six straight years.  Best in US history.

But Obama disappointed you?

Yeah. Sure he did.

StupidiNews!

• As Hurricane Matthew rips up Florida's east coast today with 1.5 million evacuated, GOP Gov. Rick Scott says voter registration that ends Tuesday will not be extended due to the storm.
• Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is daring the EU and US to withdraw foreign aid to his country if they are unhappy with his brutal and bloody crackdown on drug sellers and users.
• Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize for trying to end the country's 50-year civil war with FARC rebels, despite the deal being rejected by voters.
• US airlines are asking the the Obama administration for a one-year exemption from anti-trust and collusion rules in order to try to recover money from Venezuela's crashing economy.
• Chinese PC giant Lenovo is in talks to purchase Fujitsu's ailing PC and laptop business, a move that would give the combined company 40% of Japan's PC market.