The Patriot Post® · Friday: Below the Fold
September jobs numbers jump: Roughly 336,000 jobs were added in September, besting the 170,000 estimate and beating August by more than 100,000. Meanwhile, the headline unemployment rate came in at 3.8%, slightly higher than the anticipated 3.7%. Negatively, wage increases came in lower than the expected 0.3%, with earnings up 0.2% for September and 4.2% from last year. That’s clearly not keeping up with actual inflation for most workers. Workforce participation is 62.8%, still coming in below pre-pandemic levels. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates yet again before the year’s end.
Trump endorses Jim Jordan for speaker: After Representative Matt Gaetz successfully led a coup, with the help of the entire Democrat side of the House, to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, Republicans have been scrambling to find a new speaker. Donald Trump was even floated for the role, which he seemingly teased about considering. However, on Thursday, Trump ended any rumors of him seriously considering the position as he gave his “complete & total endorsement” to Representative Jim Jordan (OH). In a posting on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C., representing Ohio’s 4th Congressional District. Respected by all, he is now Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.” It will be interesting to see if Trump’s endorsement boosts Jordan over the other contenders, which include Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA). Thankfully, this ends the silly conversation of Trump as speaker.
Trans swimmer fail This week in Berlin, Germany, the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup began, and for the first time it was going to feature a new open category in the 50 meter and 100 meter races. This open category was designed to welcome all “transgender” identifying swimmers. Well, all these open category races have now been canceled because no swimmers signed up. Last year, World Aquatics instituted a new policy limiting male swimmers to participate in men’s races unless they provided proof of gender “transition” prior to the age of 12 or puberty. “Classifying athletes on the basis of sex is necessary to meet World Aquatics’ goals for female Aquatics athletes and the women’s competition category,” the swimming federation explained after adopting the new rule. It is telling that given the option to compete fairly in an open category no gender-bending individuals took the opportunity.
“Fat lesbians” and free speech: Swiss writer and political pundit Alain Bonnet, who also goes by Alain Soral, has been fined and handed a 60-day jail sentence for what amounts to stating observable facts. On Monday, a Swiss court found Soral guilty of defamation, discrimination, and incitement to hatred. What did Soral say? Well, he dared to refer to Catherine Macherel, who is a leftist Swiss journalist and an LGBTQ activist, as a “fat lesbian.” In Switzerland, where there is no First Amendment protecting an individual’s right to freedom of speech, word and thought crimes are increasingly being punished if the words people use run contrary to the Left’s preferred narrative — especially so on sexuality. This type of speech policing is what the Left would love to impose in America.
Kendi’s racket: Within weeks of race huckster Ibram X. Kendi taking a gig at Boston University, heading the newly created Center for Antiracism Research in the summer of 2020, his brother-in-law, Macharia Edmonds, received a $600,000 mortgage loan from the school. That loan served as a down payment for a $4.56 million luxury apartment in Boston. Former senior counsel to the Senate Finance Committee Dean Zerbe observed: “There are institutions that actually do provide loans. They’re called banks. People like to get loans at banks, not at universities. It raises a fundamental question of why did you not get a loan from a bank?” Zerbe notes that the reason is that these are “sweetheart deals,” which hold low or even no interest rates. So, while Kendi has complained that “black students are disproportionately bearing the weight of student debt,” his brother-in-law is getting sweetheart loan deals from the school. And Kendi himself has amassed considerable wealth from his Center that raised over $43 million since June 2020, but recently laid off a bunch of its staff and has produced almost nothing in the form of research.
Falling life expectancy: Life expectancy in the U.S. has been steadily falling since it peaked at 78.9 years in 2014. The decline was exacerbated by COVID, but it began prior to the virus and even with the pandemic passed the decline has continued. What’s killing Americans has remained rather consistent over the decade, and the leading factors for the increasing mortality rate are health related. Heart disease is the leading killer followed by cancer. The Washington Post reports, “Chronic illnesses, which often sicken people in middle age after the protective vitality of youth has ebbed, erase more than twice as many years of life among people younger than 65 as all the overdoses, homicides, suicides and car accidents combined.” The rates of deaths due to kidney disease, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and liver disease have all been on the rise since 2000.
Headlines
Biden administration defends building of border wall, indicates it was forced (Daily Signal)
Biden administration to restart deportations to Venezuela amid record border crossings (Daily Wire)
The U.S. added $275 billion to debt in ONE DAY this week (Not the Bee)
Amtrak hides hefty salaries of thousands of employees while it hemorrhages millions (Daily Caller)
Record number of voters prefer GOP on economy (Power Line)
Protesters hit Ramaswamy campaign vehicle outside Iowa event (Fox News)
Biden judicial nominee dreams of a day Supreme Court justices disclose personal pronouns (Washington Free Beacon)
Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting women’s oppression (Associated Press)
Humor: Republicans considering making Alex Jones speaker of the House after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster (Genesius Times)
For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.