The Patriot Post® · Thursday Top News Executive Summary

Business & Economy

JOB REVISIONS & DEBT: According to Market Watch, “Turns out hiring wasn’t nearly as strong in 2018 and early 2019 as the government initially reported — by about a half-million jobs. The economy had about 501,000 fewer jobs as of March 2019 than the Bureau of Labor Statistics initially calculated in its survey of business establishments. That’s the largest revision since the waning stages of the Great Recession in 2009. … The average 223,000 monthly increase in employment in 2018 — the strongest in three years — could be trimmed to 180,000 to 185,000, economists estimate.” Additionally, “The Congressional Budget Office has warned that President Trump’s tariffs on China will hurt U.S. GDP and said the comprehensive budget deal the president signed in August will drive up the federal deficit to higher levels than expected,” reports National Review. Nevertheless, the Associated Press says, “A day after considering cutting taxes to promote economic growth, President Donald Trump changed course and said he would abandon the idea because the nation already had ‘a strong economy.’”

GREEN NEW DAYDREAM: Speaking of deficit spending, Reuters reports: “Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders unveiled a climate change strategy on Thursday that would mobilize $16.3 trillion to help the U.S. generate 100% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030 and achieve ‘full decarbonization’ by 2050.” Laughably, the scheme pledges “to create 20 million jobs in the process,” Reuters adds. Sanders claims, “The climate crisis is … the single greatest challenge facing our country.” No — the single greatest challenge is swamp fever.

Government & Politics

DANGEROUS PRECEDENT: “A U.S. appeals court in Denver said Electoral College members can vote for the presidential candidate of their choice and aren’t bound by the popular vote in their states. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the Colorado secretary of state violated the Constitution in 2016 when he removed an elector and nullified his vote when the elector refused to cast his ballot for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote. It was not immediately clear what effect the ruling might have on the Electoral College system.” (The Washington Times)

FLORES WORKAROUND: “The Trump administration is rolling out its own licensing standards for family residential centers, a move that will work around the Flores settlement and mitigate the illegal immigration crisis. The Department of Homeland Security introduced a new policy Wednesday regarding family residential centers (FRCs) that house immigrant family units. The rule change, the administration argues, will allow DHS to keep families together during their detention while also stemming the flow of illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border.” (The Daily Caller)

CORRECTING A GROSS MISINTERPRETATION: “President Trump said Wednesday that he is ‘seriously’ considering issuing an executive order to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump argued that it is ‘frankly ridiculous’ that the U.S. affords citizenship to babies born to immigrants who entered the country illegally.” (National Review)

WHO? NBC News reports that “Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is dropping out of the 2020 Democratic presidential race.” Or, as Fox News’s Sean Hannity put it, “Did anybody even know he was in the race?”

Other Notables

STUDENT DEBT CANCELED: According to National Review, “President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order directing the Department of Education to cancel all federal student-loan debt for seriously disabled veterans.” Stated Trump, “Veterans … who have made such enormous sacrifices for our country should not be asked to pay anymore. The debt of these disabled veterans will be entirely erased. It will be gone. They can sleep well tonight.”

COUNTERING ANTIFA: Trump this week inveighed, “Antifa, in my opinion, is a terrorist organization.” As such, the president is “considering designating masked Antifa militants as a terrorist organization because of the group’s violent actions across the country,” The Daily Signal reports, adding: “A designation as a terrorist organization would mean that the federal government would provide federal and local law enforcement with additional resources as needed to deal with Antifa.”

Closing Arguments

POLICY: It is arithmetically impossible to fund the progressive agenda by taxing the rich (The Heritage Foundation)

POLICY: What the grievance brigade misunderstands about America (The Hill)

HUMOR: Concerning survey finds too many people believe Snopes is a legitimate fact-checking website (The Babylon Bee)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit In Our Sights.

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