Once again, protests against the NRA at its annual convention, this time in Dallas, have been pathetic. Turnout has been “shockingly small.” One event had “maybe 100 (people), half of whom were journalists.” An actress involved in the protest movement attended — accompanied by armed security guards, who illegally “chase(d) Texans out of a public park simply because they asked if she uses armed defense.” Topping it all: The press has ignored the long, violent criminal record of local anti-NRA organizer Dominique Alexander.

(more…)

Despite relatively recent Associated Press Stylebook changes mandating that elected officials’ political party “should be routinely included” in stories about them, the wire service appears to be backsliding. On Saturday, I noted the wire service’s failure – before being shamed into a partial remedy — to tag DC politicians engaged in public anti-Semitic outbursts and conspiracy theories as Democrats. Now it turns out that the AP’s Scott Bauer, in a Saturday dispatch, failed to apply the Democratic Party tag to Lena Taylor, a Wisconsin State Senator charged with disorderly conduct in a racially-charged incident at a Milwaukee bank. Is the AP Stylebook genuine guidance, or a $22-per-copy exercise in pretense?

(more…)

This open thread is meant for commenters to post on items either briefly noted below (if any) or otherwise not covered at this blog. Rules are here.

From Sioux City, Iowa:

May 3, 2018 / 07:00 pm

An Iowa bishop said that a bill banning abortions after detection of a fetal heartbeat “affirms the life-giving intent” of the state’s pro-life efforts.

Known as the “fetal heartbeat” bill, the measure was attached to state. legislation banning the sale and transfer of fetal remains. The bill was passed by the state’s legislature this week.

Bishop Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, told CNA he supports the legislation’s aims.

“We are grateful that, right now, it looks like it would stop some trafficking of fetal body parts following an abortion,” he said. “It also affirms the life-giving intent of our stance in pro-life activities.”

The bill, passed in the Iowa House of Representatives May 1 and the Iowa Senate May 2, now awaits approval from Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, who has not commented on whether she will sign the legislation into law.

The law would require any women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound to determine whether a fetal heartbeat can be detected, a milestone usually detected in the sixth week of pregnancy. The bill does make some exceptions for pregnancies conceived through rape or incest.

The bill would also ban all persons from knowingly acquiring, providing, transferring, or using fetal remains in Iowa. This would not apply to medical diagnostic samples, or forensic investigations, or to fetal body parts donated for medical research after a miscarriage or stillbirth.

“We support the life-giving intent of the provisions in the bill and we want to do everything we can to support that,” Bishop Nickless said. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

You had to figure that a lefty journalist would denigrate yesterday’s news that the nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell below 4 percent for the first time since 2000. Jordan Weissmann, in a Slate.com column beginning with a headlined contention that “The Unemployment Rate Is Meaningless,” came through.

(more…)

TheFederalist.com’s Mollie Hemingway appeared Saturday morning on Fox & Friends: Weekend to discuss NBC’s botched “Michael Cohen was wiretapped” story, which is only the latest in a long line of establishment press stories subsequently requiring major corrections or retractions. Hemingway observed that the errors “always go in one direction.”

(more…)

This open thread is meant for commenters to post on items either briefly noted below (if any) or otherwise not covered at this blog. Rules are here.

From Moulton, Alabama (Instagram video at link; HT Sunnyskyz):

NFL player returns to Alabama to take girl to special needs prom

Published: Sunday, April 15th 2018, 6:16 pm EDT
Updated: Sunday, April 15th 2018, 6:16 pm EDT

Don Jones II, from Lawrence County, plays for the San Francisco 49ers. He recently came back to town to take a young girl with disabilities to her prom in Moulton.

Jones says Lindsey Preston’s mom is close with his family. So, last year her mother asked Jones if he would be willing to take her to prom.

“Lindsey always stayed in contact with me and the family,” says Jones. “Her mother asked me to go to prom with her last year so I told her I would be more than glad to.”

Jones says he was just as happy as Lindsey was to attend the event.

“Anything I can do to make some kids smile, I would be more than willing to do,” says Jones. “I think the most fun was all of the guys, I showed the guys about 5 or 6 new dance moves.”

Jones says they did danced to all of the classics like the Cha-Cha Slide, The Cupid Shuffle and even did a little bit of the whip and nae nae.

“All of the guys followed me around all night and I was just glad I could dance and put smiles on the kid’s faces,” says Jones.

Last year, Jones tore his ACL last year during the final pre-season game. He was been in Birmingham for therapy. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

The Associated Press apparently was shamed by a Washington Examiner reporter Wednesday when it revised a story on District of Columbia Councilman Trayon White to include his Democratic Party affiliation. White has been sharply criticized and ridiculed for anti-Semitic remarks, including claiming that Jews control the climate. The party tag didn’t arrive in the AP’s revision until Paragraph 5, even though White was named twice in previous paragraphs. The AP, violating its own Stylebook rules, also didn’t specifically tag other Democrats who have made incendiary anti-Semitic remarks.

(more…)

Predictions:

• Yahoo Economic Calendar — 192,000 payroll jobs added
• Reuters — 192,000 payroll jobs added, 4.0 percent unemployment rate.
• Bloomberg — 193,000 payroll jobs added, 4.0 percent unemployment rate.
• Zero Hedge reported consensus — 198,000 jobs added, unemployment rate stays at 4.1 percent.

Not Seasonally Adjusted Benchmarks:

I’ve retrieved the data, haven’t had time to create a related graphic. My benchmarks are 1.25 million total nonfarm jobs actually added, with 1.2 million of them in the private sector. I’m also hoping that more actual jobs were added in March than the 665K total nonfarm and 603K in the private sector reported last month.

The report will be here (full release with tables will also be here) at 8:30.

HERE IT IS: Topline good news on the unemployment rate, somewhat disappointing news on seasonally adjusted payroll jobs, but a detailed look is coming later —

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 164,000 in April, and the unemployment rate edged down to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Job gains occurred in professional and business services, manufacturing, health care, and mining.

Household Survey Data

In April, the unemployment rate edged down to 3.9 percent, following 6 months at 4.1 percent. The number of unemployed persons, at 6.3 million, also edged down over the month.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult women decreased to 3.5 percent in April. The jobless rates for adult men (3.7 percent), teenagers (12.9 percent), Whites (3.6 percent), Blacks (6.6 percent), Asians (2.8 percent), and Hispanics (4.8 percent) showed little or no change over the month.

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs declined by 188,000 in April to 3.0 million.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.3 million in April and accounted for 20.0 percent of the unemployed. Over the year, the number of long-term unemployed was down by 340,000.

Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.8 percent, and the employment- population ratio, at 60.3 percent, changed little in April.

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged at 5.0 million in April. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or because they were unable to find full-time jobs.

… Establishment Survey Data

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 164,000 in April, compared with an average monthly gain of 191,000 over the prior 12 months. In April, job gains occurred in professional and business services, manufacturing, health care, and mining.

In April, employment in professional and business services increased by 54,000. Over the past 12 months, the industry has added 518,000 jobs.

Employment in manufacturing increased by 24,000 in April. Most of the gain was in the durable goods component, with machinery adding 8,000 jobs and employment in fabricated metal products continuing to trend up (+4,000). Manufacturing employment has risen by 245,000 over the year, with about three-fourths of the growth in durable goods industries.

Health care added 24,000 jobs in April and 305,000 jobs over the year. In April, employment rose in ambulatory health care services (+17,000) and hospitals (+8,000).

In April, employment in mining increased by 8,000, with most of the gain occurring in support activities for mining (+7,000). Since a recent low in October 2016, employment in mining has risen by 86,000.

Employment changed little over the month in other major industries, including construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and government.

The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 34.5 hours in April. In manufacturing, the workweek increased by 0.2 hour to 41.1 hours, while overtime edged up by 0.1 hour to 3.7 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 0.1 hour to 33.8 hours.

In April, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 4 cents to $26.84. Over the year, average hourly earnings have increased by 67 cents, or 2.6 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 5 cents to $22.51 in April.

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised down from +326,000 to +324,000, and the change for March was revised up from +103,000 to
+135,000. With these revisions, employment gains in February and March combined were 30,000 more than previously reported. (Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.) After revisions, job gains have averaged 208,000 over the last 3 months.

So seasonally adjusted payroll job adds matched expectations after including the upward prior-month revision to March that I was expecting.

NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED RESULTS

Here are the raw and seasonally adjusted figures:

Raw results fell far short of the admittedly aggressive benchmarks I set.

As seen here, the seasonal conversions reasonably reflected reality this time around, showing only a relatively slight 32K-41K overstatement compared to the conversions done in the previous four years. (The first three months of this year showed far higher variances in both directions.)

More shortly.

____________________________

UPDATE (reference are to seasonally adjusted numbers unless otherwise indicated):

• The workforce and participation numbers are weak. The civilian labor force declined by 236K (nearly 400K in the past two months). Employment per the Household Survey increased by only 3K (down 34K in the past two months). Not in labor force is at 95.745 million. On the positive side, the number of officially unemployed dropped by 239K to 6.346 million.
• The black unemployment rate of 6.6 percent is the lowest seasonally adjusted figure seen on records going back to 1972. The unemployment rate for 20-and-over black women is 5.1 percent, but for men it’s 6.4 percent. Tempering the enthusiasm is a significant drop in the related workforce participation rates (0.7 points for black women, 0.5 points for black men).
• The “We’re at full employment” crowd needs to explain why there isn’t a lot more room for improvement, given that the Asian unemployment rate is 2.8 percent. Why shouldn’t the overall unemployment rate be able drop to that level across all ethnic groups?
• The Hispanic unemployment rate of 4.8 percent matches all-time lows on records kept since 1973 seen three times last year. The rate has been 5.1 percent or lower during the past 11 months.
• Full-time jobs increased by 319K, while part-timers decreased by 350K. Those numbers are basically the reverse of what was seen in March. In the past 12 months, FT employment has increased by 1.79 million, while part-timers have increased by 304K.
• The fully-loaded (U-6) unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent, the lowest level since 2001.
• The goods-producing sectors had another good month (+49K jobs added). Mining, construction, and manufacturing have added 561K jobs in the past 12 months, or just over 25 percent of the 2.28 million total jobs added. In April 2017, the goods-producing sectors accounted for about 13.7 percent of all payroll employment, meaning that they have since added jobs at almost twice the rate of all other sectors.
• As BLS noted, average hourly earnings are only up 2.6 percent in the past year. But average weekly earnings are up 2.9 percent. Both of those figures still, after all this time, need to improve.

Overall, today’s news was okay, but not great. It’s nice that the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed went down, but the participation indicators weakened. It’s great that the black unemployment rate is at a record low level, but, again, participation levels are not encouraging. The number of payroll jobs added was good but not great. Wage increases, though improving on the Obama era, are still somewhat disappointing.

This open thread is meant for commenters to post on items either briefly noted below (if any) or otherwise not covered at this blog. Rules are here.

From Kansas City, Missouri:

… May 3, 2018 / 03:04 am

A newly-released album by a chart-topping community of Benedictine nuns in rural Missouri is devoted to the hearts of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but is dedicated in a particular way to Saint Joseph’s paternity.

“St. Joseph has shown himself a father to us very poignantly in recent months, both spiritually and temporally, so this CD is our little votive to his paternal heart,” Mother Cecilia, prioress of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, told CNA.

The Hearts of Jesus, Mary & Joseph at Ephesus was released to coincide with the May 1 feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Funds from the sale of the album will support the construction of the expanding community’s priory church, which has $2 million remaining.

The album can be purchased from the nuns’ website at https://music.benedictinesofmary.org/ or at Amazon. Digital copies are available from iTunes.

Go here for the rest of the story.

… owe me a big honkin’ apology:

Since the 2016 election Facebook has been cracking down on conservative and pro-Trump content.

Top conservative websites have seen a stunning drop in their Facebook traffic.
This was no accident. This was the plan.

… On Tuesday Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will ramp up its censorship of “controversial” political content.

The announcement was made to a group of liberal publishers and the anti-Trump Wall Street Journal.

… Facebook is determined to shut out conservative pro-Trump voices.

Then there’s Google, which at least has viable competitors people should be using:

Google’s Insane Campus Is What Happens When You Politicize Everything

So of course they’ve politicized search, and it’s not arguable.

Then there’s Twitter.

This open thread is meant for commenters to post on items either briefly noted below (if any) or otherwise not covered at this blog. Rules are here.

From Krakow, Poland (video at link):

Apr 27, 2018 / 01:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Hanna Chrzanowska, a 20th-century Polish nurse and laywoman who will be beatified in Krakow Saturday, is a model of how to give of oneself for the good of others, said a priest involved with her canonization cause.

“The laity know well the reality of everyday life,” Fr. Pawel Galuszka said. “Hanna, as a nurse, knew in person and from experience the problems of the sick, alone, abandoned and disabled.”

A Polish priest responsible for the pastoral section of the beatification cause of Hanna Chrzanowska, Galuszka told CNA via email that “in today’s culture the logic of the market prevails… In every aspect of life we tend to calculate profit or utility.”

Chrzanowska, on the other hand, “teaches us how important it is to make a sincere gift of oneself, even sacrifice, for the good of the other. This is, and will be, the very legacy of Blessed Hanna Chrzanowska.”

Galuszka noted that St. John Paul II, then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, knew Chrzanowska during her life, and when he presided over her funeral said: “We thank you, Miss Hanna, for having been among us… a particular incarnation of Christ’s blessings from the Sermon on the Mount, above all that he said ‘blessed [are] the merciful.’”

“The bishop of Krakow [St. John Paul II] had no doubt that Hanna in a heroic way fulfilled the commandment of love of neighbor,” Galuszka noted.

Meeting Cardinal Wojtyla was one of the special moments in Chrzanowska’s life, the priest recounted, adding that the then-bishop of Krakow gave her “real moral and material help” during her organization of various parish infirmaries throughout the city and archdiocese.

“Equipped with a charismatic personality, she concentrated a significant group of collaborators and volunteers around her work, among them nurses, nuns, seminarians, priests, doctors, professors and students,” Galuszka said.

“With their help, she organized retreats for her patients that brought back the joy and the strength to face everyday life. Thanks to her efforts, the tradition of celebrating Holy Mass in the homes of the sick, and going to visit patients during pastoral visits, spread.”

Chrzanowska was born in Warsaw on October 7, 1902 to a family known for their charitable work. She finished high school at a school run by Ursuline sisters in Krakow and after graduating in 1922 attended nursing school in Warsaw.

She became an oblate with the Ursuline Sisters of St. Benedict.

From 1926-1929 she worked as an instructor at the University School of Nurses and Hygienists in Krakow. For 10 years she held the position of editor of the monthly “Nurse Poland” magazine, also publishing her own work in the field of nursing.

During this period, she also grew closer to God, joining in the work of the Catholic Association of Polish Nurses in 1937.

In 1939, Poland saw the outbreak of World War II. After the war and after the opening of a university school of maternity and nursing in Krakow, she worked as the head of the department dedicated to home nursing. …

Go here for the rest of the story.